21 March 2016•Update: 28 March 2016
By Alex Jensen
SEOUL
South Korea's unification ministry warned Monday that North Korea is in a position to conduct another nuclear test "immediately".
The North was hit by strengthened United Nations sanctions earlier this month in response to its fourth ever nuclear test in January and subsequent long-range rocket launch.
Pyongyang claims that it has now developed hydrogen bomb technology as well as the ability to miniaturize nuclear warheads -- North Korea's authoritarian regime has repeatedly vowed to pursue what it sees as a sovereign right to develop nuclear weapons, despite the objections of the UN Security Council.
South Korean government spokesperson Jeong Joon-hee told reporters that Seoul is anticipating "all possibilities," as the peninsula continues to be gripped by heightened tensions.
The Koreas never signed a peace treaty following their 1950-53 conflict -- and earlier this year the only tangible area of bilateral cooperation was severed with the closure of a joint industrial complex just north of the border in Kaesong.
Seoul's view that a further North Korean nuclear test could be imminent is supported by satellite data analysis presented on the American website 38 North.
Such a provocation would inevitably result in even tougher global measures to prevent Pyongyang from fulfilling its stated plan to be able to strike the mainland United States.
The UN released a statement of condemnation last week after North Korea's first medium-range ballistic missile launches in two years.
