U.S. military put on highest alert ever after N. Korean nuke test

The US and its ally South Korea are in talks to send further strategic assets to the Korean peninsula, a day after a US B-52 bomber flew over the South in response to the test.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok told a press briefing Monday that the DPRK forces are airing propaganda messages from loudspeakers in frontline areas, without elaborating on details. But it has been in discussion with the South about deploying strategic weapons on the Korean peninsula after the test. Media said these could include nuclear-capable B-2 and B-52 bombers, and a nuclear-powered submarine.

Top negotiators from South Korea, Japan and the United States will meet Wednesday in Seoul to discuss North Korea’s nuclear test last week.

Seoul also announced new restrictions on the movement of its citizens to the jointly-run Kaesong industrial park, just a few kilometers over the border inside North Korea.

The United States and other global powers condemned North Korea for testing another bomb, and the United Nations Security Council met in emergency session to consider increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang.

Earlier on Sunday, KCNA quoted Kim as saying no one had the right to criticise the North’s nuclear tests.

Seoul already has resumed loudspeaker broadcasts of propaganda and pop music across the DMZ that reportedly can be heard up to 6 miles away during the day and 16 miles at night into the North. North Korea is making its own broadcasts there, presumably to partially drown out the South Korean din.

All eyes are on what measures China will take, if any, to punish the North for what it claims was its first successful test of a hydrogen bomb on Wednesday.

The report by South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that Lee and Scaparotti “confirmed their resolve to deter the North from further provocations”.

But Joseph DeThomas, a former senior State Department official who advised on Iran and North Korea sanctions policy until February 2013, said new sanctions wouldn’t force change in Pyongyang unless China is convinced of the strategic effect of North Korea having nuclear weapons that could threaten America.

The commander of the 28,500 US troops in South Korea, General Curtis Scaparrotti, urged them to be vigilant.

However, most countries, including the USA, seriously doubt its claims that it exploded a hydrogen bomb.

The vice-foreign ministers of South Korea, the United States and Japan are also expected to meet in Tokyo later this week. Compliance has been lowest in Africa, an increasingly important market for low-cost North Korean weapons sales.

The broadcasts appeared to be too weak to hear clearly on the South Korean side, according to the ministry.