UN Security Council condemns N. Korea nuclear test, starts work on 'further measures'

The UN Security Council has unanimously condemned North Korea’s most recent nuclear test, calling it a clear violation of UNSC resolutions. The council will begin working on a new resolution in response to the test.

"The members of the Security Council... recalled that they have previously expressed their determination to take further significant measures in the event of another nuclear test [by [North Korea]," Uruguay's UN Ambassador Elbio Rosselli, president of the council in January, told reporters.

"In line with this commitment and the gravity of this violation, the members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on such measures in a new Security Council resolution," he said.

The UNSC members shared the opinion that the test was “a clear violation of Security Council resolutions,” Rosselli added.

North Korea claimed on Wednesday that it had successfully detonated a miniature hydrogen bomb, marking the country’s fourth known nuclear test.

The announcement followed the detection of an “artificial seismic event” in the vicinity of a known Pyongyang nuclear site.

If true, the proclaimed miniaturization of a nuclear device may mean that North Korea could soon develop a nuclear warhead for its larger ballistic missiles.

Pyongyang has already claimed it can deliver nuclear strikes on the US mainland, but military experts doubt that they have such a capability.

The seismic shock from the most recent North Korean test was close to that of a similar test carried out by the country in 2013, Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of  the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO), said.

Three years ago the magnitude of the blast was at 5.1, while the current test was something around 4.8 - 4.9, he added.

The confirmation of a nuclear test could take between 48 to 72 hours as winds must carry the particles released in the blast to CTBTO monitoring stations in Russia and Japan.

It is expected that the resolution will oversee the expansion of an existing sanctions regime against North Korea.

Japan’s UN envoy, Motohide Yoshikawa, said after the meeting that that the resolution will be based on Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, which sets out the UNSC powers to maintain peace, impose sanctions and use military means.

"The exact content of the resolution is yet to be discussed between us,” Yoshikawa is cited as saying by Tass.

The alleged nuclear test by North Korea was condemned around the globe and labeled a threat to international security.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has labeled the move a “provocation,” for which Pyongang will pay the price.

Russia slammed the test for escalating tensions in the Korean Peninsula and called for restraint.

China expressed eagerness to put an even greater effort into denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

Japan stressed that threats to its national security coming from North Korea won’t be tolerated.

Washington meanwhile assured that it will "protect and defend” it’s allies in the region and will "respond appropriately to any and all North Korean provocations."

The US is confident that North Korea had tested a nuclear bomb, but it wants to get as much data as possible on the details of the event, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Previously, Earnest stressed that initial American analyses were “not consistent with the claim the regime has made of a successful hydrogen bomb test.”