Russia condemns North Korea nuclear test

Russia on Tuesday condemned North Korea's new nuclear test, saying Moscow considered it a violation of UN Security Council resolutions, the Interfax news agency reported.

"We condemn these actions by North Korea and see them, along with the recent ballistic rocket satellite launch, as a violation of corresponding UN Security Council resolutions," a foreign ministry source told the agency.

Russia had in December expressed "deep regret" over a long-range rocket launch by North Korea which Pyongyang said was a purely scientific mission aimed at putting a satellite into space.

The RIA Novosti news agency said seismologists at the Russian Academy of Sciences had detected the small earthquake that was triggered by the nuclear test.

However, Russia's chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko said that radiation levels in the Far East of Russia neighbouring North Korea were normal, Interfax said.

North Korea confirmed Tuesday it had successfully carried out an underground nuclear test of a new, "miniaturised" device in what it called a targeted response to US "hostility".