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SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korea said on Monday it was preparing fresh military drills with its ally the United States and ramping up its ballistic missile defenses in response to North Korea’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test a day earlier.
The United Nations Security Council was set to meet later on Monday to discuss fresh sanctions against the isolated regime. U.S. President Donald Trump had also asked to be briefed on all available military options, according to his defense chief.
South Korea’s air force and army conducted exercises involving long-range air-to-surface missiles and ballistic missiles on Monday, the joint chiefs of staff said in a statement. More drills were being prepared with U.S. forces in the South, it said.
South Korea’s environment ministry will also announce on Monday its approval of an environmental assessment report for the deployment of a controversial U.S. anti-missile defense system, a ministry official told Reuters.
South Korea said in June it would hold off installing the remaining components of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system until it completed an assessment of its impact on the environment.
North Korea said Sunday’s nuclear test was of an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile, prompting the threat of a “massive” military response from the United States.
“Any threat to the United States or its territories, including Guam or our allies, will be met with a massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming,” U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said outside the White House after meeting Trump and his national security team.
“We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea,” Mattis said. “But as I said, we have many options to do so.”
Trump has previously vowed to stop North Korea developing nuclear weapons and said he would unleash “fire and fury” if it threatened U.S. territory. That prompted the North to threaten to fire missiles towards the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, although it has since appeared to back away from that threat.
TOUGHER SANCTIONS?
Despite the tough talk, the immediate focus of the international response was expected to be on tougher economic sanctions against Pyongyang.
Diplomats have said the UN Security Council could now consider banning Pyongyang’s textile exports and the North’s national airline, stop supplies of oil to the government and military, prevent North Koreans from working abroad and add top officials to a blacklist to subject them to an asset freeze and travel ban.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Sunday he would put together a package of new sanctions to potentially cut off all trade with North Korea.
“If countries want to do business with the United States, they obviously will be working with our allies and others to cut off North Korea economically,” Mnuchin told Fox News.
North Korea, which carries out its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of UN resolutions and sanctions, said on state television the hydrogen bomb test ordered by leader Kim Jong Un had been a “perfect success”.
The test had registered with international seismic agencies as a man-made earthquake near a test site. Japanese and South Korean officials said the tremor was about 10 times more powerful than the one picked up after North Korea’s previous nuclear test a year ago.
China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration said data from radiation monitoring stations near the North Korean border showed no impact on “China’s environment or populace”.
