President Trump's threats to North Korea from the UN General Assembly last week, have triggered many to compare the rising tensions to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when two superpowers were said to be at the brink of nuclear conflict. At least according to Daryl G. Kimball who is the executive director of the Arms Control Association and is referred to in an article by the New York Times titled: "North Korea hits a new level of Brinksmanship in reacting to Trump."
North Korea threatens seventh nuclear test in Pacific
He suggested that the United Nations secretary general, Antonio Guterres, get the six nations: U.S., S.
Korea, N. Korea, Russia, Japan and China to have talks and reduce tensions instigated by Trump to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Mr. Kimball's request comes days after President Trump threatened to "totally destroy North Korea" during his speech at the UN. North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un made a statement on Friday where he responded in kind saying that Trump had "made the most ferocious declaration of war in history."
Kim Jong-un also expressed in his statement that Trump had denied his existence and insulted him before the entire world. Mr. Kim's foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, also made a more specific threat to the U.S. outside of a New York hotel he was staying following Trump's speech, saying that the decision to take the next step was entirely up to Kim Jong-un.
But he also added that his country could conduct the "biggest ever Hydrogen Bomb test in the Pacific."
Comparisons to 37-year-old hydrogen bomb test
According to the article, the foreign minister would not have made such a statement without the supreme leader's approval. And while some analysts expressed doubt that Kim Jong-un had the capability or even the political courage to conduct an atmospheric test of a hydrogen bomb, it's been widely reported that the Hermit Kingdom had conducted plenty of underground nuclear tests in their own country.
Last month, the DPRK conducted its sixth Nuclear Test which was said to be a hydrogen bomb and its biggest one to date. Mr. Ri's statement recalls the last time an atmospheric nuclear test had been conducted in 1980.
According to the NY Times report, a security expert who is with Seoul's Korea National Diplomatic Academy said that it was unlikely that N.
Korea could dispatch ships to the Pacific, especially since the U.S. has ships there monitoring the area. The details over China's 37-year-old hydrogen bomb test was that they fired a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile 1,300 miles west of Beijing into a salt flat in the desert.
The question now -- about the DPRK's hydrogen bomb threat -- is whether they have a nuclear warhead that could withstand re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. It's already predicted that such a nuclear test in the Pacific Ocean would spread radiation for over a thousand miles. It's suggested that the test North Korea is referring to would detonate in the atmosphere rather than on land or water. Many experts who have monitored North Korea feel that they might not have the capability but Kim Jong-un's regime had surprised those same experts who only theorized the DPRK had certain weapons before they were confirmed as being real.