Updated
Photo:
Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe spoke by phone about the "escalating crisis". (Reuters: Toru Hanai)
Authorities around the world have condemned North
Korea's biggest nuclear test to date, with US President Donald Trump
threatening to cut off trade with countries that do business with the
isolated state and refusing to rule out a military option.
The explosion of what North Korea said was an advanced hydrogen bomb came just days after it fired a missile over Japan and a few hours after Mr Trump spoke with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by phone about the "escalating" nuclear crisis.Mr Trump, who said after last week's missile launch that talking to Pyongyang "is not the answer", tweeted that Sunday's test showed North Korea's "words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States".
Shortly after, Mr Trump again refused to rule out military action, telling an ABC America reporter "we'll see" when asked if he would attack North Korea.
In a statement, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the national security team was "monitoring this very closely" and the President would meet with the team later in the day.
China had tried but failed to solve the problem, he said, while what he called South Korea's "talk of appeasement" would not work as "they (the North Koreans) only understand one thing!"
"I will be meeting General Kelly, General Mattis and other military leaders at the White House to discuss North Korea," Mr Trump later wrote on Twitter.He added the US was considering "stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea", in addition to other options.
The United Nations Security Council announced it would meet on Monday morning at the request of the United States, Japan, Britain, France and South Korea, according to a statement.
World leaders have joined Mr Trump in condemning North Korea's actions, albeit in a more cautious tone.
Moscow said talks were the only way to resolve the crisis. Later on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in China.
Britain's foreign minister Boris Johnson called the nuclear test "reckless" and a "provocation" while French President Emmanuel Macron urged the United Nations Security Council to act.
"The international community must treat this new provocation with the utmost firmness, in order to bring North Korea to come back unconditionally to the path of dialogue and to proceed to the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear and ballistic programme," he said in a statement.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has no access to North Korea, called the nuclear test, Pyongyang's sixth since 2006, "an extremely regrettable act" that was "in complete disregard of the repeated demands of the international community".
'Not just our responsibility': China
Photo:
North Koreans watch a televised news report announcing the nation's sixth nuclear test since 2006. (Reuters: Kyodo)
North Korea's latest nuclear test is likely to pile more pressure on China to take tough action against its neighbour, but Beijing already doubts economic sanctions will work and says it is not its sole responsibility to rein in Pyongyang.
China has lambasted the West and its allies over recent weeks for promoting the "China responsibility theory" for North Korea, and been upset by Seoul and Washington's own military drills that Beijing says have done nothing to cool tensions.
"The United States has to play its own role and should not be blindly putting pressure on China to try and squeeze North Korea," said Ruan Zongze, a former Chinese diplomat now with the China Institute of International Studies, a think-tank affiliated with the Foreign Ministry.
While the seriousness of Sunday's nuclear test means China will likely support tough new action, including possibly cutting off oil supplies, China will make clear others need to step up too, Mr Ruan added.
Over the past week, China's foreign ministry has repeatedly hit back at calls from Western countries and Japan for China to do more to rein in North Korea, saying that pushing for dialogue was an equally integral part of the UN resolutions, and that escalating sanctions alone had been evidently ineffective.
The Global Times, a state-run newspaper, also attacked British and Australian leaders for calling on China to do more, especially Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's suggestion that China should cut off oil supplies to North Korea.
Reuters
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