Security Council condemns North Korea nuclear test

The Associated Press

A united UN Security Council strongly condemned North Korea's latest nuclear test Tuesday and pledged further action, calling Pyongyang's defiant act "a clear threat to international peace and security."

North Korea's third such test, conducted in its remote, snowy northeast, marked a crucial step toward its goal of building a bomb small enough to be fitted on a missile capable of striking the United States.

All 15 council members, including North Korea's closest ally, China, approved the statement to the media hours after the underground test. The statement called the atomic blast a "grave violation" of three United Nations resolutions that ban North Korea from conducting nuclear or missile tests.

The swift and unanimous response from the UN's most powerful body set the stage for a fourth round of sanctions against Pyongyang. Diplomats said it reflects growing anger with Pyongyang's continuing defiance of the council and the sanctions resolutions.

How tough the new sanctions will be will depend largely on China, North Korea's main trading partner. China has voted for the three previous resolutions but has resisted measures that would cut off the country's economy completely.

North Korea said its test was a "first response" to what it called U.S. threats, and said it will move ahead to unspecified "second and third measures of greater intensity" if Washington maintains its hostility.

President Barack Obama said in a statement that nuclear tests "do not make North Korea more secure." Instead, North Korea has "increasingly isolated and impoverished its people through its ill-advised pursuit of weapons of mass destruction."

But the Obama administration's options for a response are limited, and a U.S. military strike is highly unlikely.

Tuesday's test is the North's first since young leader Kim Jong Un took power. In North Korea, it is likely to be portrayed as a move to defend the nation against foreign aggression, particularly from the United States.

It wasn't immediately clear to outside experts whether the device exploded was small enough to fit on a missile and whether it was fueled by plutonium or highly enriched uranium. In 2006 and 2009, North Korea is believed to have tested devices made of plutonium. Uranium is harder for outside monitors to detect.