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By Ali Mustafayev

North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on September 3, causing a storm of indignation among the international community.

Pyongyang announced that it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. The explosion was said to be almost 10 times more powerful than the country's last nuclear test a year ago.

Hours before the test, North Korean state media released pictures of the country's leader, Kim Jong Un inspecting what it claimed was a nuclear warhead being placed inside a missile. North Korea says the bomb can be loaded onto a long-range missile.

South Korea, which was the first to suspect the nuclear test in view of neighborhood with the isolated country, has already declared its intention to continue and improve joint military drills with its strategic ally the U.S.

The country’s air forces and the army carried out a missile drill on Monday morning in response to North Korea’s nuclear test, while the drills targeted the area where the test had been carried out.

The military training involved long-range air-to-surface missiles and ballistic missiles, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

The latest nuclear test marked a dramatic escalation of Pyongyang’s stand-off with the United States and its allies.

U.S. President Donald Trump branded the country a “rogue nation” and is considering more sanctions.

North Korea’s refusal to curb its missile and nuclear programmes in the face of worldwide condemnation has angered Washington. The move to tighten sanctions against North Korea has not slowed Pyongyang’s military advances so far.

The Trump administration has warned North Korea that any threat to the U.S. or its allies would be met with a “massive military response”.

The warning from Jim Mattis, the defense secretary, came after a White House meeting between Donald Trump and his top military advisers on Sunday in which Trump reviewed defense department plans to respond to a North Korean provocation.

“We have many military options, and the president wanted to be briefed on each one of them,” Mattis said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin suggested the United States would continue to strengthen the economic pressure on North Korea.

“If countries want to do business with the United States, they obviously will be working with our allies and others to cut off North Korea economically,” Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday.”

A package of new sanctions against Pyongyang will be submitted by the Treasury Secretary to the President soon.

The Chinese and Russian leaders, who were speaking on the sidelines of a Brics summit in China, said they had agreed to “appropriately deal with” the latest nuclear test, FT reported.

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, went on to tell the summit that the group was “committed to upholding global peace and contributing to the international security order.”

German chancellor Angela Merkel, in turn, said that North Korea’s provocations had “reached a new dimension”.

The UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for Monday morning.

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