Park Geun-hye’s warning during a Cabinet meeting came as Seoul has repeatedly cited satellite imagery suggesting that Pyongyang has already completed preparations for a fifth ever nuclear test.<\/p>\n
The South is particularly cautious because its northern neighbor is considered more likely to carry out a major provocation as a political statement ahead of its first party congress in nearly 40 years.<\/p>\n
North Korea announced this week that the gathering would kick off May 6.<\/p>\n
“Ahead of its seventh party congress, Pyongyang has been preparing for an additional nuclear test and it is now in a situation where it can conduct a test anytime it decides to do so,” Park was quoted as telling government officials by local news agency Yonhap.<\/p>\n
North Korea has shown no sign of heeding global warnings after being struck with toughened sanctions last month in response to January’s fourth nuclear test.<\/p>\n
In addition to continued ballistic missile exercises, the North has set up a replica of Seoul’s presidential office for an imminent artillery drill according to South Korean military officials Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Pyongyang views itself as a victim of United States-led aggression — a North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson told the state-run KCNA news agency Thursday that Washington sees sanctions “as a major means for pursuing its foreign policy.”<\/p>\n
Another constant grievance held by the North is the alliance between the U.S. and South Korea, where nearly 30,000 American military personnel are based as a legacy of the unresolved 1950-53 Korean War.<\/p>\n
But Pyongyang’s usual ally China has also vowed to implement United Nations sanctions against North Korea, leaving the reclusive state in danger of further isolation.<\/p>\nError, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 12)<\/span>\n Anadolu Agency<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South Korean president Park Geun-hye insisted that another North Korean nuclear test would “shake the security order of Northeast Asia”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,80,14],"tags":[76040,13156,2070],"class_list":["post-58148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-breaking-news","category-world","tag-park-geun-hye","tag-seoul","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}