South Korea President Urges to Toughen Sanctions Against North Korea

Seoul is urging the UN Security Council and friendly nations to impose strict sanctions against Pyongyang following North Korea's hydrogen bomb test.

TOKYO (Sputnik) – South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Wednesday called for the toughening of sanctions against North Korea over the hydrogen bomb test.

"Tough measures are needed, including the strict sanctions of the UN Security Council and allied and friendly nations," the president was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.

Pyongyang, in turn, issued a government statement, explaining it resorted to the development of nuclear weapons to protect itself from the United States and would never use it first, unless the sovereignty of the North Korea was violated.

North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006. The tests were subject to international condemnation, and the United Nations and the United States imposed several rounds of sanctions on Pyongyang.

When Pyongyang tested its second nuclear weapon in 2009, talks on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula that North Korea was holding together with the United States, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea since 2003, came to a dead end.