North Korea has threatened to go beyond carrying out its promised third nuclear test, KCNA state news agency reported.

“The DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, or North Korea) has drawn a final conclusion that it will have to take a measure stronger than a nuclear test to cope with the hostile forces’ nuclear war moves that have become ever more undisguised,” the media agency said.

Pyongyang did not spell out which actions it would take.

It comes after sanctions were placed on North Korea following a December long-range rocket launch.

The launch was in violation of UN resolutions which banned the country from developing missile or nuclear technology after nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

Pyongyang says that it has the right to launch rockets for peaceful purposes.

It was originally speculated that the third nuclear test was announced in response to the sanctions, although satellite pictures indicate that the country has been readying its nuclear test site for more than a year.

While most experts believe the North will stage a test, the timing is not known. Many believe it could come around February 16, the anniversary of former leader Kim Jong-il’s birth.

The South Korean President feels that North Korea may conduct two nuclear tests at a time shortly. Lee Myung-bak said as much in an interview carried in today’s issue of the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

Lee Myung-bak cited no facts that would prove his assumption. But he also opined that Pyongyang may, besides, test a compact nuclear warhead for a ballistic missile.

North Korea successfully launched a carrier-rocket in December last year, triggering a negative reaction from the rest of the world.

Experts feel Pyongyang test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile.

South Korea warns about a new nuclear test allegedly being prepared by Pyongyang.

South Korea’s UN envoy said on Monday that such new provocations by the North should not go unanswered by the international community.

He reminded of last December’s launch of a North Korean space satellite in violation of pertinent resolutions by the UN Security Council, which prompted additional economic sanctions against Pyongyang.

North Korea carried out two underground nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

Moscow hasn’t confirmed that North Korea has already planted the nuclear bomb as part of its anticipated nuke test, a Russian diplomat said.

“A number of countries and international non-proliferation organizations have been warning that the test facility has been put on standby [ahead of the nuclear test],” Russia’s nuclear envoy Grigory Logvinov said.

“We have no actual proof that the charge has been planted. I doubt that anyone, apart from North Koreans, can know this for sure,” he added.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered preparations for the planned nuclear test to come to a conclusion and imposed martial law in the country, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper has cited an unnamed South Korean source as saying Thursday.

According to the source, the test may be carried out earlier than expected. Some experts name February 16, the birthday of Kim Jong-il, or the inauguration of South Korea’s president-elect Park Chung-hee on January 25 as a possible launch date.

North Korea has renewed its threat to carry out a third nuclear test in its latest warning sparked by a tightening of UN sanctions, saying it is the “demand of the people.”

The comments on Saturday come a day after Pyongyang said the sanctions adopted earlier this week amounted to a “declaration of war”, threatening the South with unspecified “physical counter-measures”.

“A nuclear test is the demand of the people,” said the Rodong Sinmun, the official daily newspaper of the ruling communist party in a signed commentary titled “We have no other option”.

“The people’s demand is that we must do something even greater than a nuclear test. The United Nations Security Council has left us with no other options,” it said.

The current upsurge in tensions has its roots in Pyongyang’s defiant decision to push ahead with a long-range rocket launch on December 12 – insisting it was a peaceful mission to place a satellite in orbit.

The rest of the world saw it as a banned ballistic missile test and on Tuesday the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution that expanded the number of North Korean entities on an international blacklist.

The United States, supported by Japan and South Korea, spearheaded the UN resolution.

Voice of Russia, RIA, Interfax, TASS, RT

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_05/North-Korea-threatens-to-go-beyond-nuclear-testing/