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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea's leader is celebrating the country's widely disputed claim of a hydrogen bomb test.
He has taken a victory tour to rally pride in an explosion viewed with outrage by much of the world and boost his domestic political goals.
Kim Jong Un's first public comments about last week's test came in a visit of military headquarters, where the state-run Korean Central News Agency says he called the explosion "a self-defensive step" meant to protect the region "from the danger of nuclear war caused by the U.S.-led imperialists."
Kim's comments at the People's Armed Forces Ministry came as world powers look for ways to punish the North over a nuclear test that, even if not of a hydrogen bomb, still likely pushes Pyongyang closer to its goal of a nuclear-armed missile that can reach the U.S. mainland.
In the wake of the test on Wednesday, the two Koreas have again settled into a kind of Cold War-era standoff.
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