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"It's all ready. A fourth and fifth nuclear test and a rocket launch could be conducted soon, possibly this year," the source said, adding that the fourth nuclear test would be much larger than the third, at an equivalent of 10 kilotons of TNT.
The tests will be undertaken, the source said, unless Washington holds talks with North Korea and abandons its policy of what Pyongyang sees as attempts at regime change.
The 27 EU finance ministers also demanded North Korea abstain from further tests and urged it to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty without delay. The statement came as the ministers met Monday in Brussels.
Their action brings the number of North Koreans subject to a travel ban and an asset freeze to 26, and the number of sanctioned companies to 33. The ministers also banned the export of components for ballistic missiles, such as certain types of aluminum, and prohibited trade in new public bonds from North Korea.
The United States is currently negotiating in the Security Council for stronger U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang after the council quickly condemned the Feb. 12 atomic blast, the third conducted by the North since 2006.
North Korea says its nuclear program is a response to what it called a U.S. threat and has warned of further, unspecified measures of "greater intensity" if Washington remains hostile - possibly signaling it would conduct further tests if sanctions are tightened further.
European Union slaps more sanctions on North Korea - Europe - Stripes
The same thing the US has gained.What could they possibly hope to gain from this?
NORTH KOREA'S PAST THREATS
North Korea has frequently employed bellicose rhetoric towards its perceived aggressors. The 1994 threat by a North Korean negotiator to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire" prompted South Koreans to stock up on essentials in panic. After US President George W Bush labelled it part of the "axis of evil" in 2002, Pyongyang said it would "mercilessly wipe out the aggressors". Last June the army warned that artillery was aimed at seven South Korean media groups and threatened a "merciless sacred war". There is also a pattern of escalating threats whenever South Korea gets a new leader.
While many observers dismiss the rhetoric as bluster, others warn of "the tyranny of low expectations" when it comes to understanding North Korea, because there have been a number of serious regional confrontations. "If you follow North Korean media you constantly see bellicose language directed against the US and South Korea and occasionally Japan is thrown in there, and it's hard to know what to take seriously. But then when you look at occasions where something really did happen, such as the artillery attack on a South Korean island in 2010, you see there were very clear warnings," Professor John Delury at South Korea's Yonsei university told the BBC.
The North consistently warned that military exercises being conducted in the area would spark a retaliation. Mr Delury argues that misreading Pyongyang's intentions and misunderstanding its capabilities has kept the US and South Korea stuck in a North Korean quagmire.
PICKING APART THE BLUSTER
The latest warning of a pre-emptive nuclear attack was in response to joint military exercises between South Korea and the US rather than sanctions per se. "Any time a nation threatens pre-emptive nuclear war, there is cause for concern. North Korea is no exception, with its recent shift in rhetoric from accusing the US of imagining a North Korean ballistic missile threat, to vowing to use its ballistic missile capabilities to strike the continental US," says Andrea Berger, from the Royal United Services Institute in London.
More BBC News - How potent are North Korea's threats?
How is them blowing up bombs in their own country a threat to the U.S.?
Obama trying to pay them off with funny money. The king isn't scared. Just in case his vacation will be in Florida instead of Hawaii.
(Reuters) - Six months ago China's state media was lauding North Korea as a great place to invest as both countries tried to promote a cross-border economic zone.
One nuclear test, a long-range rocket launch and much sabre-rattling later and China is a central player in new U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang, something Chinese experts say marks a major shift in Beijing's policy toward its impoverished neighbor.
At the same time, Chinese newspapers have been calling North Korea an ungrateful and unreliable liability. Businessmen and officials charged with building commercial ties don't even want to talk about the country.
No one is suggesting China will abandon the regime of leader Kim Jong-un or even implement the new sanctions to the letter, but a relationship once regarded "as close as lips and teeth" is on thin ice as China's frustration grows.
"I think it's remarkable and identifiable, the change in China's policy towards the Korean peninsula," said Zhu Feng, director of the International Security Programme at the elite Peking University.
Zhu said China was now putting its hopes on diplomatic coercion to get North Korea to change its behavior.
How is them blowing up bombs in their own country a threat to the U.S.?
You are saying it doesn't matter if they test bombs in their own country? Only if they explode bombs in our country, or presumably on top of our base in South Korea?
Should we ignore what they SAY as an idiosyncratic negotiating strategy and only watch to be sure they aren't about to do something of importance to us, like bomb LA or sell nuke rockets to Iran?
nk periodically does something like shell an island or sink an SK ship or shoot a passenger plane out of the sky, but that is not of direct importance to us, and all the many murderous incidents NK has done have never seemed worth war to the South Koreans, either. I can't predict whether that pattern of threat and low-level attack can go on decade after decade, safely.
I'm saying that the North Korean government has as much right to test bombs as any other government.
As for them attacking us, I'm not particularly concerned that their technology is sophisticated enough to actually pose a threat to the United States. Based on proximity I wouldn't necessarily want to be South Korea or Japan, but both are also U.S. protectorates.
I'm also confident China is exerting all of its influence to calm the North Korean government down. A conflict is certainly not in their best interests.
I'm saying that the North Korean government has as much right to test bombs as any other government.
Okay, you are not interested in this issue as a threat for us, but rather as a question of international rights. Are you comfortable with every country in the world getting nuclear weapons?
As for them attacking us, I'm not particularly concerned that their technology is sophisticated enough to actually pose a threat to the United States. Based on proximity I wouldn't necessarily want to be South Korea or Japan, but both are also U.S. protectorates.
We have 30,000 "tripwire" troops in South Korea. Are you concerned about the fate of those troops, or the war-provoking potential of a possible attack on them? These troops were originally conceived as a surefire way to assure American defense of South Korea, since the million-man army of NK would readily overrun our relatively small force and thus anger continental Americans.
I'm also confident China is exerting all of its influence to calm the North Korean government down. A conflict is certainly not in their best interests.
Are you saying you believe this is as calm as North Korea gets, and there is no problem with the current tension because China won't allow a war? And that they have the power to stop a miscalculation by NK that starts a war?
Based on proximity I wouldn't necessarily want to be South Korea or Japan, but both are also U.S. protectorates.
Based on proximity I wouldn't necessarily want to be South Korea or Japan, but both are also U.S. protectorates.
No, they are not.
In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity.
No, it does not. That term implies a degree of control over the weaker state that does not exist in our relationship with South Korea or Japan. You tried to fit a word in where it doesn't belong, like some kid studying for the SATs.
None of them confuse me, but you seem a little lost.
