The New York Times :North Korean Nuclear Claim Draws Global Criticism

By CHOE SANG-HUN
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s announcement that it had successfully conducted its second nuclear test on Monday drew condemnation and criticism around the world, including the United Nations Security Council.
The dimensions of the test were not immediately verifiable, but estimates ranged upwards of the nearly one kiloton of the North’s first nuclear test, in 2006.
President Obama said: “North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world, and I strongly condemn their reckless action.”
“The United States and the international community must take action in response,” he added.
China, by far North Korea’s largest trading partner, said it was “resolutely opposed” to the test, according to a Foreign Ministry statement carried by the official Xinhua news agency.
Russia also condemned the North’s actions, saying they “seriously destabilize the situation in Northeast Asia.”
A special session of the Security Council issued a statement saying that North Korea’s test put it in violation of prior resolutions and that a new resolution was already under discussion.
A month ago, North Korea threatened to conduct nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, citing a statement by the United Nations Security Council on April 13 that called for tightening sanctions after the North launched a long-range rocket. That launch was in violation of a previous United Nations resolution barring North Korea from ballistic missile tests.
North Korea, deeply impoverished and isolated, has long relied on its nuclear program and missile tests as bargaining chips. The country has been grappling with succession concerns since its leader, Kim Jong-il, suffered a stroke last August. Its public statements have grown increasingly bellicose, suggesting to analysts that North Korea was signaling that the country’s leadership remained stable.
In announcing the test, North Korea’s official news agency, KCNA, said, “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way as requested by its scientists and technicians.”
The test was safely conducted “on a new, higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control,” the agency said. “The results of the test helped satisfactorily settle the scientific and technological problems arising in further increasing the power of nuclear weapons and steadily developing nuclear technology.”
Scientists can judge the size of an underground nuclear blast by how violently it shakes the earth, although this method is not foolproof because conventional explosives can mimic the rumble. They also hunt for the signature of radioactive gases and particles that a nuclear blast emits.
Geological authorities in the United States, Japan and South Korea reported that the test triggered an earthquake with a magnitude of between 4.5 and 5.3. The tremor emanated from Kilju, the same area where North Korea carried out a test in October 2006.
North Korea said the 2006 test, which resulted in a 4.1-magnitude tremor, was a success, but the United States and South Korea said the bomb did not detonate fully.
Some experts wondered the same about Monday’s test.
“Was it another fizzle?” asked Hans M. Kristensen, a nuclear expert at the Federation of American Scientists. “We’ll have to wait for more analysis of the seismic data, but so far the early news media reports about a ‘Hiroshima-size’ nuclear explosion seem to be overblown.”
In Seoul, Defense Minister Lee Sang-Hee told a parliamentary hearing on Monday that the blast this time appeared to be bigger than the 2006 test, but he added that more data was needed to determine its scale. He said a 4.4-magnitude tremor may mean a nuclear detonation of anywhere between one and 20 kilotons.
The Vienna-based international organization that monitors nuclear tests said Monday that its sensors registered a 4.5-magnitude quake at 8:54 a.m. North Korea time emanating from the same location as the 2006 test. The organization has not yet established whether the tremor was caused by a nuclear explosion. The 2006 test caused a 4.1-magnitude quake, the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization said. Martin B. Kalinowski, a nuclear expert at the University of Hamburg, said a seismic magnitude of 4.7 corresponded to a nuclear explosive yield of about three to eight kilotons of high explosives, with the most likely yield being four kilotons.
By contrast, the primitive bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had explosive yields of 15 kilotons and 22 kilotons. So by any measure, the Korea blast appears to be small by modern standards.
But Alexander Drobyshevsky, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, offered a different estimate, saying that the force of the blast, which the ministry confirmed occurred at 9:54 a.m. local time in northeastern North Korea, was 10 to 20 kilotons, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported. It was unclear what information the defense ministry based its estimate on. Russia estimated the force of the 2006 blast at 5 to 15 kilotons, far higher than other estimates at the time.
After the North Korean blast in 2006, it took the Test Ban Treaty Organization two weeks before one of its stations detected a whiff of radioactive gas that confirmed the blast’s nuclear origin.
In a statement Monday, the test-ban commission said the radiological detection should be quicker this time around because more stations have come on line since 2006. The locations of gas-detection stations now include China, Canada, Russia and Japan. “The meteorological situation,” the statement said, “will determine how long it will take” to identify the radioactive gases.
If the test on Monday was more successful than the one in 2006, it could mean that North Korea has bolstered its atomic weapons capabilities — and its leverage over the United States, which has sought to denuclearize the North.
Several issues are worsening already tense relations between the two nations, including the North’s test-firing of a long-range rocket on April 5. In addition, two American journalists are scheduled to be tried June 4 in North Korea, charged with illegal entry into the North and “hostile acts.”
In February 2007, Washington agreed to ease sanctions on banks dealing with Pyongyang, and North Korea concurrently agreed to a process that would lead to the dismantling of its nuclear weapons program. North Korea would receive deliveries of fuel oil in exchange for certain verifications that it was ending its program.
But last December the process collapsed when North Korea rejected the verification measures being sought by the Bush administration.
The Obama administration has attempted to restart talks aimed at getting the North to halt its weapons program, but the North Koreans said this month that it had become “useless” to talk with Washington because it had not abandoned “hostilities.”
Hours after the latest test, the North test-fired three short-range, surface-to-air missiles, an official at the South Korean defense ministry said. The three missiles were launched toward the sea between North Korea and Japan and had a range of 80 miles, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media. They were fired from two bases not far from the nuclear test site in northeast North Korea, he said.
Reporting was contributed by William J. Broad from New York, Mark McDonald from Hong Kong, Mark Landler from Washington