By Martin Petty and Jack Kim in Phuket, Thailand
NORTH Korea has no friends left to shield it from the international community's demands that the country scrap its nuclear activities, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday.
Mrs Clinton said many nations had told a low-level North Korean delegation at regional talks in Thailand that they were concerned by Pyongyang's recent "provocative" behaviour, which has included nuclear and ballistic missile tests.
Speaking at a news conference, Mrs Clinton said North Korea's pursuit of its nuclear ambitions could provoke an arms race in North Asia, one of the world's most dynamic regions and responsible for a sixth of the global economy.
"Our partners in the region understand that a nuclear North Korea has far-reaching consequences for the security future of northeast Asia ... This would serve no nation's interests," she said on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Phuket.
"There is no place to go for North Korea, they have no friends left that will protect them from the international community's efforts to move towards denuclearisation."
Mrs Clinton said the North Korean delegation gave no sign the country was interested in ending its nuclear program, which took centre stage at the talks.
North Korea, bristling at being described by Mrs Clinton this week as behaving like an unruly child, responded in kind today, calling her vulgar and less than clever.
The North's KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying her comments "suggests she is by no means intelligent".
"Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping," KCNA said. Reuters
news.com.au
newscomau
23 July 2009
N Korea has no friends - Clinton
22 July 2009
North Korea fears forum criticism over missile tests
By THANIDA TANSUBHAPOL and ACHARA ASHAYAGACHAT
PHUKET (Bangkok Post): North Korea has called on Thailand to protect its delegates from criticism during the Asean Regional Forum.
Pyongyang's ambassador at large Pak Kun-gwang yesterday raised the issue in talks with Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya ahead of tomorrow's security meeting.
Mr Pak requested an urgent meeting with the minister shortly after the five North Korean delegates arrived on the resort island yesterday.
North Korea is worried its recent missile tests would be condemned by countries participating in the forum, said Mr Kasit's secretary Chavanond Intarakomalyasut. (LOL)
As the Asean chair, Thailand will head the Asean-initiated security talks.
Mr Chavanond quoted the minister as saying "we need to make sure the meeting's peace-building objectives are met and that he would not let any ARF members use the forum to attack other members".
"I would also like North Korea to listen to what the United States has to say," he said. "The Barack Obama administration should be given a chance to speak out."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend the forum, as will representatives from the European Union.
It is the first forum at which North Korea will engage with 25 other countries in such talks.
Asean foreign ministers will hold talks today with their dialogue partners from China, Japan and South Korea.
Thailand will push for closer cooperation with the three nations on finance, agriculture and health matters.
It will also urge the acceleration of the Chiang Mai Initiative during the Asean summit in Phuket in October, diplomatic sources said.
Last month, the so-called Asean+3 agreed in Bangkok to strengthen the regional financial mechanism. A regional pooling reserve would be established under the Chiang Mai Initiative with a US$20 billion (700 billion baht) start-up fund by the end of the year.
Director-general of the Asean Affairs Department Vitavas Srivihok said Asean ministers would also discuss measures to fight the A (H1N1) flu outbreak.
Asean secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan has been assigned to liaise with Southeast Asian health ministers on the issue, the official said.
17 July 2009
UN Issues New Sanctions against North Korea
By JOHN HEILPRIN / AP WRITER
The Irrawaddy News
UNITED NATIONS — The UN imposed new sanctions Thursday against five North Korean officials, four companies and a state agency, and banned imports of two weapons-making materials, in a rare unified push by the world's powers to thwart Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
The sanctions, which take immediate effect and are to be carried out by all of the UN's 192 member nations, include travel bans and a freeze on the financial assets against the officials, companies and state agency. Nations also were instructed to refrain from supplying North Korea with certain types of graphite and para-aramid fiber—two of the materials used in ballistic missile parts.
"It is of course significant that we have also put individuals on the list, as this is the first time. This shows that the sanctions are going on a higher level at this moment," said Fazli Corman, Turkey's deputy UN ambassador, who chairs the panel.
The newest sanctions were approved against:
—The General Bureau of Atomic Energy in Pyongyang, the chief agency directing the North's nuclear program. That includes the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center and its plutonium production research reactor, as well as its fuel fabrication and reprocessing facilities.
—Three Pyongyang-based companies—Namchongang Trading Corp., Korea Hyoksin Trading Corp., and Korean Tangun Trading Corp—and one Iranian-based company, Hong Kong Electronics.
—Yun Ho-Jin, director of Namchongang Trading Corp; Ri Je-Son, director of the General Bureau of Atomic Energy; Hwang Sok-Hwa, chief of the bureau's scientific guidance; Ri Hong-Sop, former director of Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center; and Han Yu-Ro, director of Korea Ryongaksan General Trading Corp.
—Two types of goods used in ballistic missile parts by North Korea—a graphite designed or specified for use in electrical discharge machining; and a para-aramid fiber, filament and tape, which is a Kevlar-like material.
US Ambassador Susan Rice said the United States was pleased with the list, which required unanimous approval among the 15 nations that make up a sanctions panel of the UN's powerhouse Security Council. China, North Korea's biggest ally and trading partner, went along with most of the US recommendations.
The US has launched what it calls a major effort to ensure that UN Security Council Resolution 1874, which along with a previous resolution in 2006 serves to authorize the latest sanctions, is implemented effectively.
"These new designations—five individuals, five entities and two goods—strengthen the sanctions regime against North Korea and will serve to constrain North Korea from engaging in transactions or activities that could fund its WMD or proliferation activities," Rice said.
The sanctions panel, which said it plans to add still more names and entities, has been focused on three areas: sensitive dual-use goods, ballistic missile-related items and nuclear-related items.
Pak Tok-hun, deputy chief of North Korea's UN mission in New York, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that the sanctions were "unfair" but said they will not harm his country.
Pak said North Korea "will not accept Security Council resolutions against the North and any sanctions under the resolutions," adding, "Sanctions will not resolve any problems."
A US expert on North Korean sanctions said the latest measures—putting the UN seal of approval on measures the US already has prepared to undertake—are "a modest first step" that might scare off some of North Korea's weapons-buying customers.
"We're now into a game of Whack-A-Mole," said Marcus Noland, an economist at Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, referring to the game in which moles keeping popping up from their holes randomly.
"What's going to happen is that the North Koreans are going to try to reconstitute their entities and form new shell companies, new front companies, to continue these activities," he said. "If there's really going to be comprehensive efforts on this, they're going to have to go after the financial intermediaries, some of which are in China, and after the customers."
North Korea has not indicated how it might react to the sanctions panel's latest decisions.
But on June 13, North Korea's Foreign Ministry threatened to take "countermeasures" including accelerating plutonium reprocessing and starting up uranium enrichment, which would give the regime a second way to make atomic bombs.
North Korea warned that any attempted blockade of its ships would be considered "an act of war" that would draw "a decisive military response." It also has threatened a "thousand-fold" military retaliation against the US and its allies if provoked.
Security Council Resolution 1874, approved on June 12, responded to the North's underground nuclear test blast on May 25.
06 July 2009
NKorean Launches Maybe Included New Scud
By HYUNG-JIN KIM / AP WRITER
The Irrawaddy News
SEOUL — A barrage of ballistic missiles that North Korea test-fired over the weekend may have included a new type of Scud missile with an extended range and improved accuracy that poses a threat to Japan, a South Korean newspaper reported Monday.
Pyongyang launched seven missiles into waters off its east coast Saturday in a show of force that defied UN resolutions and drew international condemnation.
On Monday, South Korea's mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported the launches were believed to have included three Scud-ER missiles with a range of up to 620 miles (1,000 kilometers).
The paper said the Scud-ER has a longer range and better accuracy compared with previous Scud series so is "particularly a threat to Japan."
Tokyo is about 720 miles (1,160 kilometers) from the base on North Korea's east coast from where the missiles were fired. Some other parts of Japan are closer, well within the range of a Scud-ER.
Scuds are single stage, liquid-fueled missiles, originally developed in the former Soviet Union, and generally known for poor accuracy. Ballistic missile programs in Pakistan and Iran were built on Scud technology.
The Chosun Ilbo, citing a government source it did not name, said the other four missiles were two Scud-C missiles with a range of 310 miles (500 kilometers) and two medium-range Rodong missiles that can travel up to 810 miles (1,300 kilometers).
Five of the seven missiles flew about 260 miles (420 kilometers) from an eastern coastal launch site and landed in one area, meaning their accuracy has improved, the paper said.
South Korea's Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said Monday that the North demonstrated improved missile accuracy in the latest tests because they all landed in the same area.
He declined to confirm details of the Chosun Ilbo report.
Another ministry official told The Associated Press on Sunday that the missiles appeared to have traveled about 250 miles (400 kilometers), meaning that key government and military facilities in South Korea were within range. The official spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy.
North Korea has long-range missiles as well. The Taepodong-2 has a potential range of more than 4,100 miles (6,700 kilometers), putting Alaska within striking distance.
The country is believed to be developing a missile with an even longer range that could potentially put the US west coast, Hawaii, Australia and eastern Europe within striking distance.
The launches on July 4—the US Independence Day holiday—also appeared to be a poke at Washington as it moves to enforce UN as well as its own sanctions against the isolated regime for its May 25 nuclear test.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned they were "very destabilizing, potentially."
North Korean state media have not specifically mentioned the launches but boasted Sunday that the country's military could impose "merciless punishment" on those who provoke it.
"Our revolutionary forces have grown up today as the strong army that can impose merciless punishment against those who offend us," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
The North has engaged in a series of acts this year widely seen as provocative. It fired a long-range rocket it said was a satellite in early April, and in late May it carried out its second underground nuclear test following the first in late 2006.
The UN Security Council punished Pyongyang with tough sanctions centered on clamping down on North Korea's alleged trading of banned arms and weapons-related material.
The US has been monitoring a North Korean freighter because of suspicions it may be carrying illegal weapons, possibly to Burma. The ship, however, turned around a week ago without stopping at any port and headed toward home.
Won, the Defense Ministry spokesman, said the Kang Nam 1 was expected to arrived in the North later Monday.
Separately, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman pledged to work with the US to block North Korea from using the Southeast Asian nation's banks for any weapons deals.
"If America has any information that is available to them, then I think they should give it to us so that we can act upon it," Anifah told reporters. "If they have evidence, we'll be most willing to work together to solve this problem."
The assurance came as US envoy Philip Goldberg, in charge of coordinating the implementation of sanctions against Pyongyang, met with Malaysian officials in Kuala Lumpur.
South Korean media have reported that North Korea sought payment through a bank in Malaysia for a suspected shipment of weapons to Burma.
Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang in Seoul and Julia Zappei in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.
04 July 2009
N Korea test-fires two missiles
From correspondents in Seoul
(news.com.au) Agence France-Presse
NORTH Korea has test-fired two more missiles, South Korea's defence ministry says, further stoking tensions sparked by its nuclear standoff with the international community.
"North Korea launched two missiles this morning," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. It follows a series of missile launches earlier this week.
The missiles were launched between 8am and 8.30am local time, 9.30am (AEST) from Kitdaeryong Base near the eastern port of Wonsan into the East Sea (Sea of Japan), it said.
"The military, on the basis of a strong joint defence alliance with the United States, is fully prepared to fend off any threats or provocations by the North," it said.
An unidentified government official quoted by Yonhap news agency said both of the missiles were believed to be Scuds with a range of 500km, which would allow the North to strike most of South Korea.
North Korea fired four short-range missiles on Thursday into the Sea of Japan but the range of those missiles was estimated to be only around 120km.
"The Scuds fired today impose greater security threat to us because of their longer ranges," the official was quoted as saying by Yonhap.
"Thursday's missile tests were apparently made as part of a military drill but today's launches, which came on the eve of the US Independence Day, are believed to be aimed at political purposes," the official said.
This week's missile launches were the first military action the hardline communist state had taken since the United Nations on June 12 imposed tougher sanctions for its May 25 nuclear test.
In the days after its atomic test - the second since 2006 - the North also fired a volley of short-range missiles.
In response to the UN resolution tightening curbs on its missile and atomic activities, it vowed to build more nuclear bombs. It also renounced the truce brokered on the Korean peninsula after a civil war in 1950 to 1953.
03 July 2009
North Korea fires four short-range missiles
By Lim Chang-Won
News.com.au - Agence France-Presse
* North Korea reportedly fires missiles
* US says they're not worried about attack
* Efforts to reign in rogue state continue
NORTH Korea has reportedly test-fired four short-range missiles, further fuelling tension sparked by its nuclear standoff with the international community, in a move the White House has called the latest in a string of "provocative" acts.
South Korean military officials said the missiles - apparently surface-to-ship ones - were fired into the East Sea (Sea of Japan) between 5.20pm (6.20pm AEST) and 9.20pm (8.20pm AEST) local time. All were launched on Thursday from a base at Sinsang-ri, near the eastern coastal city of Wonsan, a spokesman told the Yonhap news agency.
Other officials told the agency on condition of anonymity they landed about 100km off the coast, where the North has imposed a maritime ban until July 11 for what it calls a military drill.
Spokesmen from the defence ministry confirmed the first three firings but could not be reached for comment on the fourth.
It was the first military action the hardline communist state had taken since the United Nations on June 12 imposed tougher sanctions for its May 25 nuclear test.
South Korea's Joong Ang Ilbo newspaper, quoting an intelligence source, said the North was likely to fire a series of short-range missiles - including Scud-B missiles with a range of 340km - in the coming days. The North may also fire Rodongs, whose 1300km range would likely be shortened to about 400km for the current round of testing.
In the days after its atomic test - the second since 2006 - Pyongyang fired six short-range missiles and renounced the truce brokered on the Korean peninsula after a civil war in 1950 to 1953. In response to the UN resolution tightening curbs on its missile and atomic activities, it vowed to build more nuclear bombs.
World condemnation
US and South Korean officials believe ailing leader Kim Jong-Il, 67, is staging a show of strength to bolster his authority as he tries to put in place a succession plan involving his youngest son.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that broadly-backed international sanctions imposed on North Korea were starting to take effect and raised hopes that Pyongyang will yield to the pressure.
"The North Koreans said they were going to launch these missiles. I don't think that's surprising that they've launched these missiles. I take the North Koreans at their word that they're going to continue their provocative actions."
Washington has said it is not ruling out the possibility of a long-range missile launch toward Hawaii on or around July 4, the US Independence Day, although the Pentagon has expressed doubts about such a scenario.
A spokesman for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the Government is "very concerned" about the missile launches and called on North Korea to immediately desist.
Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso also condemned yesterday's launches, saying: "We have repeatedly warned that such a provocative act is not beneficial for North Korea's national interest."
The commander of US Northern Command, General Victor Renuart, told The Washington Times he did not think Pyongyang's missiles posed any real threat to the US.
"The nation has a very, very credible ballistic-missile defence capability. Our ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California ... give me a capability that if we really are threatened by a long-range ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) that I've got high confidence that I could interdict that flight before it caused huge damage to any US territory," he said.
In Beijing, a US delegation met officials yesterday for talks on giving the UN sanctions more teeth.
The support of China, the North's sole major ally and largest trade partner, is seen as crucial in making the sanctions stick.
Warships tracking suspected weapons
US warships have since mid-June been tracking a North Korean ship suspected of carrying weapons. The Kang Nam 1 was reportedly headed for Burma but US officials said on Tuesday it has now turned back.
China said its top envoy on the North Korean nuclear issue, Wu Dawei, had begun a visit to Russia, the United States, Japan and South Korea.
They are members of a forum which has tried since 2003 to persuade the North to scrap its nuclear programmes in return for energy aid and diplomatic and security benefits.
The North announced it was quitting the talks after the UN censured its long-range rocket launch on April 5.
North and South Korea meanwhile held more talks about the fate of their last major joint business project, the Seoul-funded Kaesong industrial estate just north of the border.
But they failed to narrow differences or set the date for their next meeting, Seoul officials said.
20 June 2009
Koreas negotiate as nuclear tensions grow
By Peter Foster in Beijing
(SMH) - NORTH and South Korea have resumed talks on the fate of their last remaining reconciliation project as the US moved to defend itself in the event of a North Korean missile strike on Hawaii.
The future of the Kaesong joint industrial estate just north of the border has become increasingly uncertain as North-South relations have worsened and the nuclear stand-off has intensified.
Pyongyang is demanding extra payments worth hundreds of millions of dollars for Seoul's use of the estate and refuses to grant access to a South Korean employee it detained at Kaesong.
Seoul officials were outwardly optimistic before the resumption of talks yesterday.
"The weather is good today, so wouldn't the talks go well?" a Unification Ministry official, Kim Young-tak, said to the Yonhap news agency before crossing the heavily fortified border at the head of a 14-member delegation.
Meanwhile, Washington is considering using five-way talks with China, Russia, Japan and South Korea to press North Korea to change tack on its nuclear and missile programs, a US official said. The five had been involved in negotiations with North Korea on the nuclear issue.
The idea was raised when the US President, Barack Obama, hosted talks at the White House on Tuesday with the South Korean President, Lee Myung-bak, a senior State Department official told reporters on Thursday.
The US military has moved additional defences to Hawaii in case North Korea fires a missile towards the Pacific island chain.
The decision to deploy missile defence weaponry to Hawaii came as the US military tracked a North Korean ship that it said might be carrying cargo banned under tougher United Nations sanctions imposed on Pyongyang last week.
The US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, said Washington was watching North Korea for missile activity.
"We do have some concerns if they were to launch a missile to the west in the direction of Hawaii," Mr Gates said. "Without telegraphing what we will do, I would just say … we are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect Americans and American territory."
He said he had approved the deployment of missile defence weaponry to Hawaii and a radar system nearby "to provide support" in case of an attack.
Reports of Pyongyang's missile preparations came as Russia and China took the rare step of jointly urging North Korea to stop its provocative actions of recent months and return to the stalled six-party talks on nuclear disarmament.
Following talks in Moscow, China's President, Hu Jintao, joined his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in calling for the "swiftest renewal" of talks.
"Russia and China are ready to foster the lowering of tension in North-East Asia and call for the continuation of efforts by all sides to resolve disagreements through peaceful means, through dialogue and consultations," they said.
The possibility has been raised that North Korea might use chemical weapons.
Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group said: "If there is an escalation of conflict and if military hostilities break out, there is a risk that [chemical weapons] could be used. In conventional terms, North Korea is weak and they feel they might have to resort to using those."
Agence France-Presse;Telegraph, London
at 8:33 PM
Labels: 5-Way talks, Chemical weapons, Corruption, Denuclearisation, Extortion, Missiles, North-South Relations, South Korea, USA
08 June 2009
N. Korea Sentences 2 U.S. Journalists to 12 Years of Hard Labor
By CHOE SANG-HUN
SEOUL, South Korea (NYT)— North Korea on Monday sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor in a case widely seen as a test of how far the isolated Communist state was willing to take its confrontational stance toward the United States.
The Central Court, the highest court of North Korea, held the trial of the two Americans, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, from Thursday to Monday and convicted them of “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry,” the North’s official news agency, KCNA, said in a report monitored in Seoul.
Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee have been held since they were detained by North Korean soldiers patrolling the border between China and North Korea on March 17.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called the charges “baseless.”
The United States government had demanded that the North forgo the legal proceedings and release the two women.
The sentencing came amid rising tensions between Washington and Pyongyang. Earlier Monday, North Korea threatened to retaliate with “extreme” measures if the United Nations punished it for its nuclear test last month, and Washington warned that it might try to put the North back on its list of states that sponsor terrorism, a designation that could subject the impoverished state to more financial sanctions.
“Our response would be to consider sanctions against us as a declaration of war and answer it with extreme hard-line measures,” the North Korea’s state-run newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in a commentary.
Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were on a reporting assignment from Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company co-founded by Al Gore, the former vice president, when they were detained by the soldiers. The reporters were working on a report about North Korean refugees — women and children — who had fled their homeland in hopes of finding food in China.
The circumstances surrounding their capture remain unclear.
Analysts said they were a pawn in a rapidly deteriorating confrontation between the United States and North Korea — a potential bargaining chip for the Pyongyang regime and a handicap for Washington in its efforts to pressure the government over its recent missile and nuclear tests.
The sentence to North Korea’s infamous prison camps came despite repeated appeals for clemency from the journalists’ families.
Defying not only its traditional foes — the United States, Japan and South Korea — but also its longtime ideological allies, China and Russia, North Korea launched an intermediate-range rocket on April 5 and conducted an underground nuclear test on May 25.
at 3:39 PM
Labels: Euna Lee, Journalists, Laura Ling, Missiles, Sanctions, Threats, USA
07 June 2009
US Weighs Intercepting North Korean Shipments
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON (NYT)— The Obama administration signaled Sunday that it was seeking a way to interdict, possibly with China’s help, North Korean sea and air shipments suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology.
The administration also said it was examining whether there was a legal basis to reverse former President George W. Bush’s decision last year to remove the North from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.
The reference to interdictions — preferably at ports or airfields in countries like China, but possibly involving riskier confrontations on the high seas — was made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was the highest-ranking official to talk publicly about such a potentially provocative step as a response to North Korea’s second nuclear test, conducted two weeks ago.
While Mrs. Clinton did not specifically mention assistance from China, other administration officials have been pressing Beijing to take such action under Chinese law.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Mrs. Clinton said the United States feared that if the test and other recent actions by North Korea did not lead to “strong action,” there was a risk of “an arms race in Northeast Asia” — an oblique reference to the concern that Japan would reverse its long-held ban against developing nuclear weapons.
So far it is not clear how far the Chinese are willing to go to aid the United States in stopping North Korea’s profitable trade in arms, the isolated country’s most profitable export. But the American focus on interdiction demonstrates a new and potentially far tougher approach to North Korea than both President Clinton and Mr. Bush, in his second term, took as they tried unsuccessfully to reach deals that would ultimately lead North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.
Mr. Obama, aides say, has decided that he will not offer North Korea new incentives to dismantle the nuclear complex at Yongbyon that the North previously promised to abandon.
“I’m tired of buying the same horse twice,” Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said last week while touring an antimissile site in Alaska that the Bush administration built to demonstrate its preparedness to destroy North Korean missiles headed toward the United States. (So far, the North Koreans have not successfully tested a missile of sufficient range to reach the United States, though there is evidence that they may be preparing for another test of their long-range Taepodong-2 missile.)
In France on Saturday, Mr. Obama referred to the same string of broken deals, telling reporters, “I don’t think there should be an assumption that we will simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways.” He added, “We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation.”
While Mr. Obama was in the Middle East and Europe last week, several senior officials said the president’s national security team had all but set aside the central assumption that guided American policy toward North Korea over the past 16 years and two presidencies: that the North would be willing to ultimately abandon its small arsenal of nuclear weapons in return for some combination of oil, nuclear power plants, money, food and guarantees that the United States would not topple its government, the world’s last Stalinesque regime.
Now, after examining the still-inconclusive evidence about the results of North Korea’s second nuclear test, the administration has come to different conclusions: that Pyonyang’s top priority is to be recognized as a nuclear state, that it is unwilling to bargain away its weapons and that it sees tests as a way to help sell its nuclear technology.
“This entirely changes the dynamic of how you deal with them,” a senior national security aide said.
While Mr. Obama is willing to reopen the six-party talks that Mr. Bush began — the other participants are Japan, South Korea, Russia and China — he has no intention, aides say, of offering new incentives to get the North to fulfill agreements from 1994, 2005 and 2008; all were recently renounced.
“Clinton bought it once, Bush bought it again, and we’re not going to buy it a third time,” one of Mr. Obama’s chief strategists said last week, referring to the Yongbyon plant, where the North reprocesses spent nuclear fuel into bomb-grade plutonium.
While some officials privately acknowledged that they would still like to roll back what one called North Korea’s “rudimentary” nuclear capacity, a more realistic goal is to stop the country from devising a small weapon deliverable on a short-, medium- or long-range missile.
In conducting any interdictions, the United States could risk open confrontation with North Korea. That prospect — and the likelihood of escalating conflict if the North resisted an inspection — is why China has balked at American proposals for a resolution by the United Nations Security Council that would explicitly allow interceptions at sea. A previous Security Council resolution, passed after the North’s first nuclear test, in 2006, allowed interdictions “consistent with international law.” But that term was never defined, and few of the provisions were enforced.
North Korea has repeatedly said it would regard any interdiction as an act of war, and officials in Washington have been trying to find ways to stop the shipments without a conflict. Late last week, James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, visited Beijing with a delegation of American officials, seeking ideas from China about sanctions, including financial pressure, that might force North Korea to change direction.
“The Chinese face a dilemma that they have always faced,” a senior administration official said. “They don’t want North Korea to become a full nuclear weapons state. But they don’t want to cause the state to collapse.” They have been walking a fine line, the official said, taking a tough position against the North of late, but unwilling to publicly embrace steps that would put China in America’s camp.
To counter the Chinese concern, Mr. Steinberg and his delegation argued to the Chinese that failing to crack down on North Korea would prompt reactions that Beijing would find deeply unsettling, including a greater American military presence in the region and more calls in Japan for that country to develop its own weapons.
Mrs. Clinton seemed to reflect this concern in the interview on Sunday. “We will do everything we can to both interdict it and prevent it and shut off their flow of money,” she said. “If we do not take significant and effective action against the North Koreans now, we’ll spark an arms race in Northeast Asia. I don’t think anybody wants to see that.”
While Mrs. Clinton also said the State Department was examining whether North Korea should be placed back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, she acknowledged that there was a legal process for it. “Obviously we would want to see recent evidence of their support for international terrorism,” she said.
That evidence may be hard to come by. While North Korea has engaged in missile sales, it has not been linked to terrorism activity for many years. And North Korea’s restoration to the list would be largely symbolic, because it already faces numerous economic sanctions.
03 June 2009
North Korea warns US, South Korea of possible military acts
(Jakarta Post-AP) -North Korea warned South Korea and the United States on Wednesday that Seoul's participation in a U.S.-led program to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction is equal to a declaration of war.
South Korea announced its participation in the U.S.-led program on Tuesday, one day after North Korea defiantly conducted a nuclear test, drawing international criticism.
The North's military said in a statement that it will respond with "immediate, strong military measures" against any attempt to stop and search North Korean ships under the Proliferation Security Initiative.
The statement, carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, also said the regime no longer considers itself bound by the armistice that ended the Korean War. It accused the U.S., a signatory of the armistice, of "dragging" the South into the program under its "hostile policy" against the North.
It also said it cannot guarantee safety for South Korean and U.S. navy ships sailing near the disputed western Korean sea border.
Earlier Wednesday, news reports and South Korean officials said the North has restarted a weapons-grade nuclear plant and fired five short-range missiles in two days, deepening the standoff with world powers following its nuclear test.
South Korea's mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that U.S. spy satellites have detected steam coming from a nuclear facility at North Korea's main Yongbyon plant, indicating the North is reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods to harvest weapons-grade plutonium.
Its report quoted an unnamed official. South Korea's Defense Ministry and the National Intelligence Service - the country's main spy agency - said they cannot confirm the report.
The North had said it would begin reprocessing in protest over international criticism of its April 5 rocket launch.
North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs. The North also has about 8,000 spent fuel rods which, if reprocessed, could allow the country to harvest 6-8 kilograms (13-18 pounds) of plutonium - enough to make at least one nuclear bomb, experts said.
Yonhap news agency carried a similar report later Wednesday, saying the gate of a facility storing the spent fuel rods was spotted open several times since mid-April. The report, also citing an unnamed South Korean official, said chemical-carrying vehicles were spotted at Yongbyon.
North Korea test-fired three additional short-range missiles Tuesday, including one late at night, from the east coast city of Hamhung, according to South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae.
He said the North already test-launched two short-range missiles from another eastern coast launch pad on Monday, not the three reported by many South Korean media outlets.
02 June 2009
South Korea fortifies Yellow Sea
(News.com-AAP) -SOUTH Korea has bolstered its defence of a disputed naval border with an increasingly belligerent North Korea, deploying a guided-missile naval vessel to Yellow Sea waters off the west coast.
North Korea last week threatened to attack the South and said it would not guarantee the safety of its vessels in waters near a border that has been the site of two deadly clashes between the rival states in the past 10 years.
South Korea typically does not announce specific deployments related to defence against the North, with which it is still technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended with a ceasefire and not a peace treaty.
But in a signal it will stand firm over the disputed sea border, South Korea sent the 440-tonne vessel named Yun Yeong Ha, equipped with anti-ship missiles and heavy guns, to reinforce its fleet of high-speed naval vessels there, the navy said.
North Korea has stepped up its military training, stockpiled ammunition and imposed a no-sail order off its west coast waters to prepare for a possible fight with the South, the South's biggest newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported a South Korean military source as saying.
North Korea has stoked tension in the past days with a nuclear test on May 25 and firing a barrage of short-range missiles off its east coast.
at 1:55 PM
Labels: Missiles, South Korea, Threats, World
Despot dynamics: the dirty secret to survival
By Peter Hartcher
(SMH) -How will we know when the world is finally serious about disciplining Kim Jong-il's regime? Nobody wants a war, but there are three specific non-military steps that the big powers of North Asia could take to sever the regime's most important lifelines and bring it to its knees.
And the dirty secret of the North Korea debate is that nobody in officialdom's polite circles will discuss them openly. We certainly know the ritual signs that nothing serious is going to happen to hold North Korea accountable for its nuclear belligerence - we are seeing them now.
The United Nations Security Council wrings its hands over Kim's latest outrage. Special envoys fly about from one city to another. And experts debate whether to negotiate with Pyongyang or to apply sanctions.
Since 1994 the world has offered Pyongyang carrots and sticks in a giddying alternation of incentives and sanctions. And Kim pushes on relentlessly with his nuclear program regardless.
We'll know when the world has truly had enough of Kim's nuclear brinkmanship. The three steps to seriously disciplining North Korea? One is for Japan to take, another is for South Korea, and third is for China.
Japan would shut down the flow of hard currency that it allows its residents to send to North Korea.
Every year, the 100,000 or so members of Japan's North Korean community, organised through a group called Chosen Soren, send remittance money home.
How much is impossible to know, but in 1994 Japanese police estimated that it was about $US600 million ($739 million) annually. For perspective, a sum of $US600 million would make up a third of North Korea's declared annual shortfall of foreign exchange. The regime makes up the rest by smuggling out drugs, counterfeit US dollars, fake Viagra, weapons and other contraband.
Tokyo has taken a sterner approach to Pyongyang in recent years and has clamped down on bank transfers, but large volumes of cash still cross the Sea of Japan (also known as the East Sea) in the 1000 or so vessels that ply the route in any year.
Second, South Korea would shut down its trade with North Korea.
For Seoul, the $US1.8 billion annual two-way trade with its badly behaved northern neighbour is a trifling amount. North Korea makes up a lousy 0.2 per cent of South Korea's trade and there is nothing that Seoul buys from Pyongyang that it couldn't buy elsewhere.
But for Kim Jong-il, this would represent a third of his country's total trade. It would be a serious loss for the country and a body blow to the regime.
Third, China would cut off its trade with North Korea. This is the big one. Beijing is by far the biggest trading partner and biggest source of foreign exchange to Pyongyang.
And because much of China's export to its communist ally is provided on concessionary terms, this would be tantamount to shutting off its aid to Pyongyang as well. Among other things, China supplies some 90 per cent of North Korea's oil, most at friendship prices.
But rather than reduce its trade and aid to North Korea, China in recent months has actually increased it.
Why? Because the US and South Korea have been cutting aid to the recalcitrant country. China stepped in and more than offset the loss. As long as Kim Jong-il has China, he can probably survive the punishments that the rest of the world might attempt to mete out. So for any discipline to work, it's not enough for Japan or South Korea to act. China must act, too. And the world would need to support it with equivalent sanctions.
Keep in mind that North Korea is already on the economic equivalent of life support. Kim gets much criticism for starving his people to feed his army. And it's true that his people are starving - a third of the population is so desperately short of food that it is suffering from malnutrition, according to the UN World Food Program.
But visitors to the hermit kingdom in the last couple of years report that there isn't even enough to money to supply basics to the army. Close inspection of soldiers around Pyongyang shows that some have no socks and carry painted wooden guns. The country's total economy is estimated to produce between $US20 billion and $US30 billion a year, about the same as Tasmania's but for a country of 22 million.
Concerted action by its big three neighbours could reduce Kim to powerlessness. So why don't they act? For Japan it would be administratively and politically messy. For South Korea it would be politically tough - most South Koreans favour a conciliatory approach to their kinfolk across the demilitarised zone.
For China, keeping Kim's regime alive is a strategic priority. Worse than having Kim Jong-il next door would be not having Kim Jong-il next door.
If Kim's regime were to collapse, China would expect to be mobbed by millions of starving North Koreans. Even more troubling for Beijing is the likelihood Seoul would quickly assume control of Pyongyang. China would lose the buffer state that sits between it and a US treaty ally. That's why the world is not about to get serious about making Kim behave.
Presuming he succeeds in making deliverable nukes, Kim is not mad enough to attack anyone with them. And the world is not going to effectively deter him from trying.
Perhaps the best approach is to recall the wisdom of the Peter Sellers Cold War movie classic, Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb.
Peter Hartcher is the Herald's international editor.
01 June 2009
ASEAN nuclear ambitions alarm the West
(Jakarta Post) -Lilian Budianto
As North Korea's recent nuclear test raises tensions in Asia, ASEAN members' nuclear programs are ringing alarm bells in the Western world already irritated by Myanmar's military junta.
Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines have already notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of their intention to operate nuclear power plants in the near future as an alternative to non-renewable energy resources.
Indonesia relies on coal, oil and gas to generate electricity for its population of 240 million. Along with the rise in industrial production, the government has sought to develop four nuclear plants that could support 2 percent of its electricity demands by 2017.
Similarly, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam all aim to either build or operate nuclear power plants by 2020, while the Philippines has plans to revive its closed Bataan nuclear power plant.
Myanmar’s notorious junta, which has been subject to Western economic sanctions because of its poor human rights record, has attracted the most criticism over its plan to develop nuclear reactors. In 2002 it was reported that the Russian government had agreed to help the military junta build a nuclear research facility that would be used to develop reactors for medical and electricity resources.
The US has shunned Myanmar's nuclear plans, saying Yangon has neither the legal framework nor the provisions that would safeguard its nuclear program from posing a security threat.
“Nuclear power and nuclear arms are different sides of the same coin. Every nuclear-power-wielding state can turn into a nuclear-armed nation,” said Tessa de Ryck, an anti- nuclear campaigner from Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
“North Korea is an example. Once a country possesses a nuclear power plant, it is hard for the international community to restrict ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.”
The global community has failed to persuade North Korea from nuclear testing, and big powers like China have ensured economic support for Pyongyang. China has also provided economic support for Myanmar undermining economic sanctions imposed by the West.
Ten ASEAN members signed the 1995 Bangkok Treaty that outlined a nuclear-free zone and an agreement not to abuse nuclear technology. However, precedents have shown the bloc has no leverage in meddling in the domestic affairs of member countries in case of any standoffs.
Myanmar has become the center of attention recently over the fresh trial of opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 13 out of the 19 years since her party won a landslide victory in 1990. ASEAN leaders have come under fire for their leniency toward Myanmar at a time when the West has been considering imposing yet more sanctions on Myanmar.
“No one can ask Myanmar to adhere to the human rights commitment they have made under the ASEAN Charter that entered into force last year,” said Bantarto Bandoro, the chairman of the Indonesian Institution for Strategic Studies. “If Myanmar later abuses the nuclear plant to produce arms, there would be no one that could ask them to stop.”
Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia have signed the United Nations’ Non-Proliferation Treaty, but so far, only Jakarta has ratified it.
Greenpeace has predicted that nuclear power plants in the ASEAN region would be able to produce up to 200 nuclear bombs a year, considering it takes only 5 kilograms of plutonium to make a nuclear warhead.
PM joins condemnation of North Korea
(Bangkok Post) -South Korea and Thailand have criticised North Korea, saying the country's latest nuclear test threatens world peace and stability and harms efforts to prevent atomic proliferation.
The two nations' leaders yesterday discussed Pyongyang's nuclear blast on the sidelines of a summit between South Korea and Southeast Asian countries being held amid heavy security.
The summit was planned months ago, but North Korea's underground nuclear test and a series of short-range missile launches last week threaten to steal the limelight from economic matters, the main focus of the agenda.
South Korean President Lee Myungbak and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva agreed the test went against international efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and "undermines peace and stability not only in East Asia but also in the whole world", said Lee Dong-kwan, the South Korean president's chief spokesman.
They also agreed to exert diplomatic pressure to ensure North Korea complies with UN Security Council resolutions and "promptly returns to six-party talks" aimed at ridding it of nuclear weapons.
The summit venue of Seogwipo, on the island of Jeju off the southern coast, is the South Korean city farthest away from the North. Still, the nervous South Korean government is taking no chances, positioning a surface-to-air missile outside the venue aimed towards the North.
About 5,000 police officers, including 200 commandos and special vehicles that can analyse sarin gas and other chemicals, have been deployed nearby, security authorities said. Marines, special forces and air patrols also kept watch on the island.
Leaders of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations began arriving for the two-day summit, which officially begins today and commemorates 20 years of relations between South Korea and the bloc. South Korea's president planned to use yesterday for individual meetings with Asean leaders.
But concerns about North Korea's most recent bout of sabre-rattling loomed. South Korean officials said spy satellites had spotted signs the North might be preparing to transport a longrange missile to a launch site.
The North has attacked South Korean targets before, bombing a Korea Air jet in 1987 and trying to kill then-president Chun Doo-hwan in Burma in 1983.
The UN Security Council is still weighing up how to react to the North's belligerent moves that have earned Pyongyang criticism from the US, Europe, Russia and even the North's closest ally, China.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said North Korea's progress on nuclear weapons and long-range missiles was "a harbinger of a dark future" and had created an urgent need for more pressure on the reclusive communist government to change its ways.
Mr Gates, speaking at an annual meeting of defence and security officials in Singapore, said Pyongyang's efforts pose the potential for an arms race in Asia that could spread beyond the region.
at 8:11 PM
Labels: Missiles, Peace and Stability, South Korea, Thailand, Threats, UNSC, World
Korea calls for close ties with Asean
Seogwipo (Bangkok Post)- South Korea imposed heavy security on Sunday for a summit with Asean leaders following North Korean nuclear and missile tests that frayed nerves across the region.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called on Sunday for closer business and cultural ties with Southeast Asia to create a common economic community that is a leader in green growth.
Lee, who invited leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian nations to commemorate 20 years of relations between the Seoul and the bloc, hailed the expansion of their economic ties.
Total trade has grown 11 times over the past two decades to $90.2 billion last year, he said, and is expected to increase to $150 billion by 2015.
"We must strengthen our economic partnership, expand cultural exchange and become partners in our common goal of taking the lead in the new era of green growth," Lee told business executives ahead of a summit on Monday and Tuesday. "We have the vast potential for future growth."
The two sides have concluded free trade agreements in goods and services and plan to sign an investment accord at the summit.
The summit was planned months ago, but North Korea’s underground nuclear test and a series of short-range missile launches last week threatens to steal the limelight from economic and diplomatic matters.
The summit venue of Seogwipo - on the island of Jeju off the southern coast - is the city farthest away from the North. Still, the nervous South Korean government is taking no chances, positioning a surface-to-air missile outside the venue aimed toward the north, amid signs Pyongyang was preparing to stage a new long-range missile exercise.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was among the leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) attending the two-day summit, which begins Monday and commemorates 20 years of relations between South Korea and the bloc.
Some 5,000 police officers, including approximately 200 commandos, and special vehicles that can analyse sarin gas and other chemicals have been deployed near the venue of the Seogwipo summit.
Marines, special forces and air patrols also kept watch on the island.
South Korean officials said Saturday that spy satellites had spotted signs that the North may be preparing to transport a long-range missile to a launch site.
The North has attacked South Korean targets before, bombing a Korea Air jet in 1987 and trying to kill then-President Chun Doo-hwan in Burma in 1983.
On Saturday in Singapore, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned at an annual meeting of defense and security officials that the United States would not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea, while China called for calm.
Gates said North Korea’s defiant acts could spark an arms race with serious consequences for Asia.
“Our goal is complete and verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, and we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state,” Gates said.
at 8:02 PM
Labels: ASEAN, Denuclearisation, Missiles, South Korea, Threats
N Korean missile arrives for launch
(Press Ass) -North Korea has moved its most advanced long-range missile to a new launch site and has banned ships from the waters off its west coast until the end of July, it is reported.
The missile, which arrived at the Dongchang-ni launch site on the north-west coast, is believed to be a version of the Taepodong-2 rocket that the North fired on April 5.
On that occasion it claimed it had been a satellite launch.
The North could fire the missile as early as June 16 when South Korean president Lee Myung-bak and US president Barack Obama hold a summit in Washington, the South Korean Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said.
The North has also designated a large area off its west coast as a "no-sail" zone to the end of next month, an indication Pyongyang could stage armed provocations around the disputed sea border.
Seoul's defence ministry said it did not comment on intelligence matters. But late last week South Korean officials said US satellites had detected apparent preparations to transport a missile for a test launch.
A new missile launch would significantly increase the tensions running high after the North's April rocket launch and its second-ever nuclear test last week. World powers have been discussing at the United Nations how to punish Pyongyang for the atomic blast.
The North's Taepodong-2 rocket flew about 2,000 miles on April 5. The missile being readied for a new launch is believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM with a range of up to 4,000 miles. That would put Alaska within striking range.
North Korea has been building the new launch site at Dongchang-ni for years. Last year, Seoul's defence minister Lee Sang-hee told parliament that its construction was about 80% complete.
The North's missile and nuclear programmes have been considered a top security concern for the region, though the regime is not yet believed to have mastered the technology to make a nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a missile.
at 4:14 PM
Labels: Long-range, Missiles, South Korea, Threats, USA
31 May 2009
N Korea says its army will 'stand up' to UN sanctions
By Daniel Rook Seoul
(SMH) -NORTH KOREA has fired another short-range missile and threatened fresh steps if world powers impose sanctions for its nuclear test, amid signs it may be preparing to launch a long-range missile.
The US said it was sending its North Korea envoy to the jittery region, where Chinese fishing boats were fleeing a sensitive part of the Yellow Sea in fear of naval clashes.
Communist North Korea, which has warned it could launch an attack on South Korea, vowed to respond to any fresh sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council, saying "self-defence measures will be inevitable".
"The world will soon witness how our army and people stand up against oppression and despotism by the UNSC and uphold their dignity and independence," North Korea's Foreign Ministry said.
Tension has run high since Kim Jong-il's regime said it tested a nuclear bomb on Monday for the second time and renounced the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.
North Korea test-fired another missile off its east coast on Friday, the sixth in a week, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said.
Two US defence officials said satellite photos suggested North Korea might be preparing to launch a long-range ballistic missile.
Vehicle movements at two missile sites resembled work done before North Korea fired a long-range rocket last month, said the officials, who did not want to be named.
With US and South Korean troops on high alert, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was due to consult his counterparts from South Korea and Japan yesterday at a regional conference in Singapore.
Stephen Bosworth, the US special envoy on North Korea, and Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg will head to Tokyo and later visit China, South Korea and Russia, the State Department said.
The countries were part of six-nation talks that agreed in 2007 to provide aid and security guarantees to North Korea in return for it closing its nuclear weapons program.
It quit the accord last month in protest after the UN Security Council unanimously condemned its long-range missile launch.
The Security Council has been discussing a potential resolution to condemn the nuclear test.
Mr Gates, en route to Singapore, accused the North of "very provocative, aggressive" actions. But he also tried to calm nerves, stressing that the US was not planning any military action.
Mr Gates said he was unaware of any unusual troop movements in North Korea, which has about 1.1 million soldiers, compared with 680,000 South Korean and 28,500 US troops south of the border.
"I don't think there is a need for us to reinforce our military presence in the South," he said. "Should the North Koreans do something extremely provocative militarily, then we have the forces to deal with it."
Professor Yang Moo-jin, of the University of North Korean Studies, Seoul, said: "The North may put its military on a war footing, test-fire a long-range missile and restart the plutonium reprocessing facilities at Yongbyon."
26 May 2009
North Korea clears sea for missile tests
(News.com) -NORTH Korea is preparing to test-fire short-range missiles in the Yellow Sea, one day after it staged a nuclear test, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said.
"North Korea has declared an off-limits area for vessels in the Yellow Sea off Jungsan county in South Pyongan province,'' it quoted a Seoul government source as saying.
"The North is likely to fire short-range missiles today or tomorrow.''
Jungsan is about 40km west of Pyongyang.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it could not comment on intelligence matters.
The North yesterday staged its second underground nuclear test, with an explosive force much larger than the first in October 2006.
It also fired three short-range ground-to-air missiles from locations near its east coast, Seoul's military said.
Several times in recent years, the North has test-fired ground-to-ship or ship-to-ship missiles in either the Yellow Sea or the Sea of Japan.
The launches are often staged to coincide with periods of regional tension.
Yonhap said the North was preparing to launch ground-to-ship missiles with a range of 160km, which use technology based on China's Silkworm missiles.
The South summoned an emergency meeting of top military commanders to review its defence posture, a Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman said.
The meeting would stress the need to heighten vigilance against the North's "militarily provocative acts'', the spokesman said.
N Korea nuke 'comparable to Hiroshima'
(News.com) -WASHINGTON is seeking "a strong resolution with strong measures" by the United Nations against North Korea for the nuclear test it conducted yesterday, US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said.
The hardline communist state, which stunned the world with its first atomic bomb test in October 2006, made good on its threat to stage another test after the Security Council censured it for an April rocket launch.
The North "successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way,'' the official Korean Central News Agency said.
"The current nuclear test was safely conducted on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology.''
Meeting in emergency session, the UN Security Council unanimously condemned the test, while council president Vitaly Churkin of Russia said members would immediately begin working on a resolution to address Pyongyang's latest move.
"The US thinks this is a grave violation of international law, and a threat to regional and international peace and security,'' Ms Rice said about the test.
"And therefore, the United States will seek a strong resolution with strong measures.''
The force of yesterday's blast was between 10 and 20 kilotons, according to Russia's defence ministry, vastly more than the estimated one-kiloton blast three years ago.
Japan's Meteorological Agency said that based on recorded seismic activity, the energy level of the test was four times bigger than the last one.
Baek Seung-Joo of the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses told AFP that if rough estimates by some private analysts were right, "the power of the second blast is comparable to the bombs which hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki".
ASEM Foreign Ministers Derailed by Burma, North Korean Nuclear Test
By Matt Steinglass
(VOA) -The foreign ministers of 45 Asian and European countries met in Hanoi Monday for talks on the global economy but found themselves wrapped up with the issues of Burma and North Korea.
The foreign ministers had expected to take up the question of how Europe and Asia could cooperate to pull the world's economy out of the downturn it has fallen into since the global financial crisis began. But the highest-profile session of the so-called ASEM group (Asia Europe Meeting), took place between representatives of the European Union and Burma.
The European Union called for the Burmese government to release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. She is on trial for violating the terms of the house arrest under which the government has held her for 14 of the past 20 years.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said releasing Suu Kyi was crucial to pave the way for planned elections in Burma next year.
"What is necessary for those elections is to have an inclusive dialogue with all political forces in the country. That is the necessary precondition for the stability that I think everyone is seeking for the country to be able to move forward," Mr. Bildt said. "And for that to be possible, there must of course be freedom for the different political forces."
By the time Bildt and Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout finished meeting with the Burmese, North Korea announced it had tested a second nuclear bomb. Bildt had to respond to that issue, too.
General view of the opening ceremony of the 9th Asia-Europe ministerial meeting (ASEM) in Hanoi, 25 May 2009
Opening ceremony of the 9th Asia-Europe ministerial meeting (ASEM) in Hanoi, 25 May 2009
"It is alarming, it is a condemnation of the provocative regime in Pyongyang. I think it further isolates the country, I think it further aggravates the long-term situation of the country," Mr. Bildt said.
The North Korean move prompted the strongest response from the Japanese delegation. Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama said Japan would press for the ASEM meeting to issue a joint statement condemning the nuclear test, apart from the conference's normal closing statement.
"This nuclear testing poses a grave threat, a challenge to the NEPT regime and also poses a grave threat to the peace and security, stability, not only in the Northeast Asian region, but also the whole global community," Kodama said.
The Chinese, South Korean and North Korean delegations were reported to have met on the sidelines of the ASEM meeting, but no results of that meeting were made public.
