The UN Security Council on March 7 unanimously adopted a resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s third nuclear test.
Defying warnings from the international community, North Korea conducted its third nuclear test Feb. 12 at its underground testing site, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced. The blast prompted discussion of the need for a new policy toward North Korea, which had conducted a rocket launch two months earlier.
Last December, after two decades of development and four failed attempts since 1998, North Korea finally boosted a small satellite into orbit using a domestically assembled Unha-3 rocket. Although the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite failed to orient itself properly and never beamed signals to earth-based stations as designed, Pyongyang nonetheless heralded the launch as an epic national achievement.
North Korea’s third nuclear weapons test explosion, in defiance of its lone remaining ally, China, and the rest of the international community, should prompt a reappraisal of Beijing’s accommodating attitude toward its neighbor and rejuvenate U.S.-led diplomacy designed to freeze and reverse Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.
According to a February 26 Global Security Newswire story, the recent North Korean nuclear test "brought fresh attention to the capabilities" of the CTBTO's monitoring system.
The government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has apparently conducted its third nuclear test explosion, defying the explicit demands of the UN Security Council and the international community that it “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.”
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) announced this week that the organization is able to detect seismological activity in North Korea "within minutes" of an explosion.
Today, the North Korean government released a statement through the Korean Central News Agency condemning the most recent UN Security Council resolution (S/RES/2087) directed at Pyongyang. The UNSC resolution expands the list of sanctioned entities in response to the most recent North Korean satellite launch, which occurred on Dec. 12, 2012.
Today, North Korea’s National Defence Commission released a statement ramping up the rhetoric towards the United States.
North Korea put a satellite into orbit Dec. 12, marking its first success in five tries over 14 years in launching a rocket with technology directly applicable to intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) development.