North Korea today boasted that it successfully tested a nuclear weapon, sparking a barrage of global condemnation and threats of harsh sanctions over an underground blast that appeared to thrust the volatile communist state into the elite club of nuclear-armed nations.

North Korea has removed all long-range missile equipment from a launch site, significantly lowering the possibility of a new test launch, the chief of South Korea’s main spy agency said today, according to Yonhap news agency.