Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe slammed the test, saying the country’s “nuclear and missile development poses a grave and immediate new level of threat” and “seriously undermines peace and security of the region”, Xinhua news agency reported. “The UN Security Council has strongly criticized North Korea for repeatedly going ahead with ballistic missile launches this year... We find it completely intolerable that North Korea has conducted a nuclear test in such an environment,” Abe said in the statement.