World aligns against N. Korea for nuclear test

Flowers for father
People also laid flowers by a statue of Kim Il Sung, the current leader’s father who died in 1994, ahead of Tuesday’s 61st anniversary of the North Korean Workers’ Party that he founded. Red flags of the party draped buildings and lampposts.

Iranian state radio, meanwhile, blamed North Korea’s reported nuclear test on U.S. pressure, saying the test “was a reaction to America’s threats and humiliation.”

Iran has said it will not abandon uranium enrichment despite the threat of international sanctions over its disputed nuclear program, which Tehran insists is purely for peaceful purposes.

Bush said the United States was still attempting to confirm that a nuclear test had actually taken place. Still, he said, “such a claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and security.”

A U.S. government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the situation, said the seismic event could have been a nuclear explosion, but its small size was making it difficult for authorities to pin down.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service chief Kim Seung-kyu reportedly told lawmakers signs of suspicious movement were spotted at another suspected test site.

The current members of the nuclear club are the United States, Russia, Britain, France, India, Pakistan and China. Israel is widely believed to have the bomb but has not publicly declared so.

No doubts for Moscow
Reports about the size of the explosion were conflicting. Only Russia said the blast was a nuclear explosion but the reaction of world governments reflected little doubt that they were treating the announcement as fact.

“We have no doubts that it (the test) was nuclear,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

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The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Pyongyang’s ambassador to Russia, demanding that North Korea “immediately take steps to return to the regime of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty” and to the six-nation talks.

South Korea’s geological institute estimated the force of the explosion to be equivalent to 550 tons of TNT, far smaller than the two nuclear bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan in World War II.

The head of South Korea’s spy agency said the blast was equal to less than 1,000 tons of TNT, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported.

France’s atomic energy commission similarly estimated the blast measured at around 1 kiloton or less — equivalent to the explosive force of 1,000 tons of TNT.

Ivanov said it was far more powerful, equivalent to 5,000 to 15,000 tons of TNT.

The U.S. Geological Survey said it recorded a magnitude 4.2 seismic event in northeastern North Korea. Asian neighbors also said they registered a seismic event, and an official of South Korea’s monitoring center said the magnitude 3.6 tremor wasn’t a natural occurrence.

Japan dispatched three aircraft to waters between Japan and the Korean peninsula to monitor radiation levels, the Defense Agency said. Russia reported no increase in radiation levels in its Primorye territory, which borders North Korea.

Nuclear blasts give off clear seismic signatures that differentiate them from other explosions, said Friedrich Steinhaeusler, a professor of physics at Salzburg University. Even if the bomb the North Koreans detonated was small, sensors in South Korea would likely be close enough to categorize the explosion as nuclear, he said.

“I think we have to take them at their word. They’re not the type of regime to bluff,” said Peter Beck, Seoul-based analyst for International Crisis Group, a conflict-resolution think tank.

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