On Wednesday, the United States, Japan, and South Korea warned North Korea that if it performed a seventh nuclear test this year, there would be an "unparalleled" reaction.
The warning comes not only in the wake of Pyongyang's earlier this month unannounced missile tests, which included a ballistic missile launch over Japan but also amid concerns from the United States and its Asian allies that Pyongyang may be preparing to test a nuclear weapon for the first time since 2017, according to Reuters.
First Vice Foreign Minister of South Korea Cho Hyun-dong allegedly said, "We agreed that an unprecedented scale of response would be necessary if North Korea presses forward with a seventh nuclear test," at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.
The vice foreign minister of Japan, Takeo Mori, and the deputy secretary of state of the United States, Wendy Sherman, were both presents when Cho made his remarks.
The government representatives made no specific mention of the steps they would take to confront North Korea in the event that it conducted another nuclear test.
However, given that China and Russia's veto earlier this year prevented new U.N. Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang for the first time since 2006, Washington and its allies' countermeasures are probably constrained.
Increased regional joint military exercises haven't stopped North Korea from pursuing its military goals, despite its repeated breaches of the U.N. charter.
Sherman told reporters on Wednesday that additional provocations are "reckless and extremely disruptive for the region" and urged North Korea to stop.
She said, "Anything that occurs here, like a nuclear test by North Korea, has repercussions for the security of the whole globe." We really hope that everyone in the Security Council will see how drastically the world would change if a nuclear bomb is used.
Wang Web in, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, reportedly responded to the remarks by urging the West and its regional allies to acknowledge "the root causes of the long-standing impasse" and to address the concerns of all parties involved. These remarks echo China's contentious stance on Russia's conflict in Ukraine.