U.N. Calls for 'Pressure' on North Korea over Nuclear Test Threat

The United Nations said Thursday that the international community must put "pressure" on North Korea to stop it carrying out a nuclear weapons test.

"The international community has to bring pressure to bear on the North Koreans," a spokesman for U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon told reporters.

North Korea "has to realize that only dialogue will help defuse tension on the Korean peninsula and that any threat of nuclearization runs counter to Security Council resolutions," said U.N. deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey.

North Korea said earlier it planned to carry out a third nuclear test aimed at its "arch-enemy" the United States in response to tightened U.N. sanctions.

The U.N. Security Council this week toughened sanctions against the secretive North for having staged a banned rocket launch in December.

The Security Council resolution threatened "significant action" if the North stages a nuclear test. The council imposed wide-ranging sanctions after North Korea's set off nuclear bombs in an underground bunker in 2006 and 2009.