By VOA News
Former U.S. President George W. Bush has urged the five nations involved in nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea to send a clear message to Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons program.
Mr. Bush spoke at an economic forum on the South Korean island of Jeju Saturday. He said the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia must make it clear that North Korea will face consequences if it continues to defy United Nations resolutions.
The former U.S. president also stressed the importance of transparency and verification in the nuclear disarmament process.
The last round of six-party disarmament talks in China in December ended with an impasse over how the North's denuclearization would be verified. Since then, Pyongyang has conducted a nuclear test and a series of missile launches. Its provocative actions against South Korea have raised international concern about the region's stability.
The United Nations imposed tough new sanctions on North Korea in June.
The United States is taking steps to ensure the sanctions are implemented. It has frozen the assets of a number of business and financial institution dealing with North Korea. A spokesman for the U.S. State Department said Friday the U.S. is also considering returning the North to its list of states that sponsor terrorism.
Washington has offered the North a comprehensive package of incentives if it takes serious and irreversible steps to end its nuclear program.
Mr. Bush is in South Korea for a series of talks on the global economy. He is expected to promote measures against trade protectionism and the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. The agreement was signed in 2007 while he was in office, but has yet to be approved by lawmakers in both countries.
Some information for this report was provided by AP.
August 1st, 2009
03 August 2009
Bush Urges Unified Action Against North Korea
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.
14 June 2009
We'll keep making weapons
Park Chan-Kyong
Seoul (SMH)
NORTH Korea vowed yesterday to build more nuclear bombs and start enriching uranium for atomic weapons after the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions for its nuclear test last month.
The Foreign Ministry, describing the sanctions resolution as a "vile product" of a US-inspired campaign, said North Korea would never abandon nuclear weapons and would treat any attempt to blockade it as an act of war.
The 15-member Security Council voted unanimously on Friday to toughen sanctions to cripple North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. The US hailed Friday's measure but warned that Pyongyang might respond with "further provocation".
The hardline communist state's Foreign Ministry said that "all plutonium to be extracted will be weaponised". A third of used fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor had been reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium, it said.
"Secondly, we will start uranium enrichment," the Foreign Ministry said. It said the country had developed the necessary technology.
In 2002 North Korea denied US claims that it was operating a secret uranium enrichment program in addition to its plutonium-based operation it had admitted to having.
The plutonium-producing plants were shut under a six-nation disarmament deal in 2007. But North Korea vowed to restart them after the Security Council in April condemned its long-range rocket launch.
"It has become an absolutely impossible option for the DPRK [North Korea] to even think about giving up its nuclear weapons," the Foreign Ministry said.
It said North Korea would consider any blockade as an act of war and would retaliate militarily.
It said the sanctions aimed to "disarm us and suffocate us economically" to dismantle the ideology and system chosen by the people.
The Foreign Ministry said North Korea never wanted nuclear weapons "but it was an inevitable course of action forced upon us by the US hostile policy and nuclear threats".
"No matter how hard the US-led hostile forces may try all sorts of isolation and blockade, the DPRK, a proud nuclear power, will not flinch from them."
Resolution 1874, passed on Friday, does not authorise the use of force. It calls on UN member states to expand sanctions imposed on the North after its first nuclear test in October 2006.
It calls for tougher inspections of cargo suspected of containing banned missile- and nuclear-related items, a tighter arms embargo (with the exception of light weapons), and new targeted financial restrictions to choke off revenue for Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the resolution sent a "clear and strong message" to Pyongyang.
13 June 2009
UN widens sanctions on North Korea, China joins in
By Louis Charbonneau and Claudia Parsons
(News.com) -The UN Security Council unanimously approved wider sanctions against North Korea overnight over its May 25 nuclear test, a move close ally China said showed firm opposition to Pyongyang's atomic ambitions.
The sanctions resolution banned all weapons exports from North Korea and most arms imports into the reclusive communist state. It authorized UN member states to inspect North Korean sea, air and land cargo, requiring them to seize and destroy any goods transported in violation of the sanctions.
Both China and Russia, which had been reluctant to approve punitive measures against North Korea in the past, backed the US-drafted resolution, which is binding under international law.
China's UN ambassador, Zhang Yesui, said the resolution showed the "firm opposition" of the international community to North Korea's nuclear ambitions, but he urged countries to exercise caution when inspecting North Korean cargo.
"Under no circumstances should there be use or threat of the use of force," Mr Zhang said.
US Ambassador Susan Rice said Washington would press for full implementation of the sanctions and would not get into a "tit-for-tat reaction" to every provocation from Pyongyang.
"It would not be a surprise if North Korea reacted to this very tough sanctions regime in a fashion that would be further provocation and further destabilizing," she said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's press office issued a statement welcoming the 15-nation council's move.
"Acting unanimously and agreeing on credible measures, the members of the Security Council have sent today a clear and strong message to (North Korea)," the statement said, adding the South Korean UN chief would "spare no effort in facilitating the implementation of the resolution."
Two senior diplomats involved in the negotiations on the resolution said on condition of anonymity the Chinese had never really clarified whether they intended to implement the new sanctions resolution in contrast to earlier sanctions against North Korea that they ignored.
"The effectiveness of this resolution will depend on its enforcement," one of the diplomats said.
Reuters
Japan vows total ban on N Korea exports
(News.com) -JAPAN plans to impose a total ban on exports to North Korea as part of its new economic sanctions against Pyongyang following last month's nuclear test, news reports said.
The move comes after the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously Friday to slap tougher sanctions on North Korea to cripple its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Japan has already imposed a ban on its shipments of luxury goods and weapons-related equipment to North Korea following the communist state's missile launches and its first nuclear test.
Prime Minister Taro Aso's cabinet is expected to announce the additional sanctions as early as Tuesday, the Nikkei reported.
In a statement released today, Mr Aso urged North Korea to "take seriously" the latest UN resolution to punish Pyongyang for last month's nuclear test.
"The international community must work together in executing measures based on the resolution," Mr Aso said. "Our country will quickly move into action in order to secure the effectiveness of the resolution."
All 15 members of the UN Security Council endorsed the compromise resolution sponsored by Britain, France, Japan, South Korea and the US.
The text, which does not authorise the use of force, calls on UN member states to impose expanded sanctions on North Korea in response to its May 25 underground nuclear test and subsequent missile firings.
Agence France-Presse
07 June 2009
Obama warns Iran and North Korea over nuclear threat
(SMH) -US President Barack Obama said on Saturday that North Korea's nuclear weapon test had been "extraordinarily provocative" and that it would be "profoundly dangerous" for Iran to get a nuclear bomb.
Iran's nuclear program featured strongly in talks between Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy who condemned what he called "senseless" new remarks by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad casting doubt on the Holocaust.
Obama was asked about general nuclear proliferation threats at a brief press conference afterwards.
"North Korea's actions over the last several months have been extraordinarily provocative," he said.
"They have made no bones about the fact that they are testing nuclear weapons."
Obama said the UN Security Council was working towards a new resolution on North Korea and he insisted that the international community would take a "very hard look" at how to deal with the isolated Stalinist state.
Obama added that letting Iran develop a nuclear bomb would be "profoundly dangerous" and would lead other Middle East states to say "we have to go for it as well".
Sarkozy, who met Iran's foreign minister on Wednesday, said, "I told him first of all that they have to take President Obama's outstretched hand.
"Iran has the right to civilian nuclear power but not a military nuclear capability. And they must understand that.
"If their aims are peaceful they should accept international inspections, but we can't accept the Iranian leader making senseless declarations.
"The United States and France are entirely together on this question. Iran is a great country, a great civilisation. We want peace, we want dialogue, we want to help them develop, but we do not want nuclear proliferation. We are united on this."
Ahmadinejad, who is seeking a second term in office in an election this month, on Wednesday reaffirmed his bitter anti-Israel stance and called the Holocaust a "big deception".
He also accused the world's liberal democracies of degrading "human values" with their pro-Israel policies.
Sarkozy told Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Wednesday that such comments were "unacceptable and profoundly shocking," his office said.
06 June 2009
SKorea president says no compromise against NKorea
By: Bangkok Post-AFP
President Lee Myung-Bak said South Korea would not make any compromises in the face of North Korea's nuclear threats and called for Pyongyang to return to six-party disarmament talks.
"I hereby make it clear again that there won't be any compromise in issues threatening the lives of the people and national security," Lee said at a speech marking Memorial Day to honour the Korean War dead.
North Korea was not only threatening the South but the world's peace and stability by carrying out nuclear tests and launching missiles, he said.
"Even at this very moment, the North is ratcheting up the level of threats as we are also stepping up our defence posture, resulting in a trigger-wire confrontation," Lee said.
The UN Security Council is considering new sanctions against North Korea after Pyongyang carried out its second nuclear test last month.
The North also fired a rocket in April, ostensibly to put a satellite into orbit, but other countries saw it as a disguised long-range missile test.
After the UN Security Council censured its April 5 rocket launch, the North announced it was quitting the six-party talks and restarting a programme to make weapons-grade plutonium.
It also has defied international criticism of its second nuclear test by firing a volley of short-range missiles and threatening to attack the capitalist South.
The North is now said to be preparing to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic missile as well as several medium-range missiles.
"North Korea must keep its promise to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula and come back to the six-party and inter-Korean talks," Lee said.
The six-party talks, which include the two Koreas, host China, Japan, the US and Russia, are aimed at scrapping North Korea's nuclear programme in exchange for economic and diplomatic gains.
The negotiations deadlocked late last year over a dispute with North Korea over how to verify its disarmament.
US considers sanctions on NKorea in UN talks: Clinton
(Bangkok Post-AFP) -The United States is weighing a variety of sanctions on North Korea for its recent nuclear test as diplomats craft a UN resolution against Pyongyang, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Clinton was asked whether financial sanctions on North Korea and its banks were being considered after a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
"We've made considerable progress in devising the kinds of actions that would represent consequences imposed upon the North Koreans by the international community," said Clinton. "We want to come up with the strongest possible resolution."
For the North Koreans, "it's never over till it's over, that if there are effective sanctions that we believe can be imposed, an arms embargo and other steps to be taken, we need to see real results," she said.
"I am quite heartened by the progress that we're seeing in the United Nations Security Council. And when we believe we've gotten the strongest possible resolution we can get, we will table it and then proceed."
Clinton earlier met at the State Department with Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan. She described it as "a very productive meeting" in a brief encounter with reporters.
An agreement on broader UN sanctions against North Korea however is being held up by differences among key powers over tougher cargo inspections, a tighter arms embargo, a possible freeze on North Korean assets abroad and denial of access to the international banking and financial services, according to diplomats at the United Nations.
In 2005 the US Treasury Department blacklisted Macau's Banco Delta Asia on suspicion of money-laundering and handling North Korea's counterfeit notes, freezing Pyongyang's access to some 25 million dollars in its BDA accounts.
After the blacklisting several other banks in Asia were persuaded to stop handling Pyongyang's business, making even legitimate transactions difficult.
The North Korean funds were later freed for collection as a result of a 2007 agreement on denuclearization.
The UN Security Council's five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus their counterparts from Japan and South Korea have been haggling over an expanded set of sanctions since North Korea's May 25 underground nuclear test.
03 June 2009
North Korea 'preparing long-range missile launch'
By Jack Kim in Seoul
(News.com) -NORTH Korea is assembling a missile that could hit US soil and may test-launch it as early as this month, a newspaper reported, as a US envoy urged Pyongyang to cease provocations and return to disarmament talks.
The hermit state's nuclear test last week, putting it closer to having a working atomic weapon, has already prompted the US and South Korean forces to raise their military alert for the divided peninsula.
North Korea, which began ratcheting up regional tensions when it fired a long-ranged rocket over Japan in April, also test-fired a barrage of short-range missiles last week and threatened to attack the South.
"The ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) is covered up so it's tough to be absolutely clear but it looks similar to the Taepodong-2 fired in April but longer," the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper quoted a South Korean government source as saying.
The April launch triggered tightened UN Security Council sanctions that Pyongyang called unacceptable, threatening to launch an ICBM unless the world body apologised.
The newspaper said the missile has been moved to a hangar for assembly at the North's newly built west coast Tongchang-ri missile range for a launch that could come as early as mid-June. The launch area is about 90 km west of Yongbyon, the North's main nuclear complex. However, weapons experts say the impoverished state does not yet have the technology to turn its nuclear material into a warhead to put onto a missile.
It also looks ready to test launch three to four mid-range missiles with ranges that can hit all of South Korea and most of Japan, South Korean lawmakers said on Tuesday after a defence briefing.
"Now is the time for North Korea, rather than continuing to take more dangerous and provocative actions, to recognise that the better course is to re-engage and to get back on the path of negotiations towards denuclearisation," US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said after meeting foreign ministry officials in Seoul.
02 June 2009
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
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.
25 May 2009
North Korea detonates nuclear bomb
Nuclear test: This black and white satellite image shows the site.
Explosion: A satellite image showing the site of a previous North Korean weapons test (AFP)
By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy and wires
(ABC Australia) -North Korea's state media has confirmed the communist state has conducted a nuclear weapons test.
It is believed the blast was much stronger than Pyongyang's first test in 2006.
South Korea says weather agency officials detected what they called an artificial earthquake in the communist North this morning.
The government in Seoul immediately accused North Korea of conducting a nuclear weapons test.
Two hours later the secretive communist regime confirmed via its state media that it had detonated a nuclear device, saying the underground test was successful and was part of the country's nuclear deterrent policy.
In response, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak called an emergency national security council meeting, while Japan's government said it had set up a crisis task force.
The Stalinist North last staged a nuclear test in October 2006 but it is believed this blast was much bigger.
Location unknown
The brief report by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) gave no details of the location of the test.
However, South Korean officials said a tremor was detected around the north-eastern town of Kilju, near where the first test was conducted in October 2006.
"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea 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 as requested by its scientists and technicians," the KCNA report said.
A spokesman for Japan's foreign ministry said it would respond to North Korea's nuclear test "in a responsible fashion" at the United Nations.
Meanwhile, a US State Department spokesman said the Obama administration was not able to confirm "at this time" that a nuclear test had been carried out.
Second test threat
The North had threatened a second test in protest at the UN Security Council's decision to censure its April 5 long-range rocket launch.
It announced it was quitting six-nation nuclear disarmament talks and would restart its plutonium-making program.
The communist state said the test had greatly inspired the army and people.
"The successful nuclear test is greatly inspiring the army and people of the DPRK all out in the 150-day campaign, intensifying the drive for effecting a new revolutionary surge to open the gate to a thriving nation," the KCNA report said.
"The test will contribute to defending the sovereignty of the country and the nation and socialism and ensuring peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and the region around it with the might of [the military first policy] Songun."
Tremor
The US Geological Survey said it detected what it called a 4.7-magnitude earthquake in North Korea.
The tremor struck at 9:54am (local time), 375 kilometres north-east of Pyongyang at a depth of just 10 kilometres, it said.
"Both South Korean and US intelligence authorities are analysing and closely monitoring the situation," a presidential spokesman in Seoul said.
The test was staged while South Korea was in mourning for former President Roh Moo-Hyun, who died Saturday after being questioned in a corruption probe.
North Korea carried out what it called a rocket launch on April 5, but the United States, South Korea and Japan said it staged a disguised ballistic missile test.
After the UN Security Council condemned the launch and tightened sanctions, the North vowed to conduct a second nuclear test as well as ballistic missile tests unless the UN apologised.
The United States has been involved in negotiations with the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia aimed at scrapping North Korea's nuclear programme in exchange for energy aid under a landmark six-party agreement signed in 2007.
The negotiations deadlocked over a dispute with North Korea over how to verify disarmament, before taking a sharp turn for the worse with the long-range rocket launch.
06 April 2009
North Korea missile: punishment up to US
American Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice (c.) and Japanese Ambassador to the United Nations Yukio Takasu spoke to reporters regarding North Korea's launch of a test missile Sunday, April 5, 2009 at U.N. headquarters.
Mary Altaffer/AP
Security Council's struggle to respond to Sunday's rocket launch also portends challenges for Obama's nonproliferation goals with Iran.
Washington - The UN Security Council's inability to take harsh action against North Korea in an emergency session Sunday – the first such gathering of the Obama presidency – leaves the challenge posed by Pyongyang's launch of a long-range missile in Washington's lap.
That is just where North Korea's attention-starved leader, Kim Jong Il, wants it.
"North Korea was way down on the list of priorities for Obama, but with this one test firing, they have put themselves at the top of his list of things to do," says Chaibong Hahm, a Northeast Asia expert at RAND Corp., in Santa Monica, Calif.
By launching the long-range Taepodong-2 rocket despite warnings from world leaders such as President Obama, Pyongyang is daring the international community and, in particular, Washington to ignore its progress in missiles and weapons delivery at their peril.
Pyongyang claimed the launch boosted a communications satellite into orbit, but US and other officials countered that the test launch was mostly a fizzle. They said the rocket, while demonstrating some progress over a failed launch in 2006, did not attain orbiting altitude before crashing into the Pacific Ocean.
It was no coincidence, some analysts say, that North Korea fired its missile and grabbed headlines around the world as Mr. Obama was in the spotlight on his first overseas trip as president.
But the Security Council could not immediately agree on a response to the rocket launch. China urged restraint, warning against any move that could increase tensions or destabilize the rogue nation, even as America's ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, insisted that North Korea's action "merits a clear and strong response." Security Council consultations will continue over "the coming days," she said late Sunday, with an aim of producing a unified approach.
The council's lack of action points to the two-fold difficulties Obama faces in keeping North Korea from backsliding on its commitment to give up its nuclear weapons and materials and, too, in pursuing his broader goal of curtailing global nuclear proliferation.
"This puts Obama in a pretty tough situation," says Mr. Hahm. "He has said the words of the world's leaders have to mean something, so he will want to see something pretty strong come out of the Security Council."
"On the other hand, he has said he is ready to negotiate, so how does he do that without looking to allies like Japan and South Korea [like] he is siding with China and rewarding North Korea for its bad behavior?" Hahm adds.
Noting that the launch presents "the first foreign-policy test of President Obama's rhetoric," Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation in Washington says that UN credibility will depend on enforcement of existing resolutions and passage of "stronger punitive measures."
Obama underscored his long-term goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in a speech Sunday in a historic square in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. He called for eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons – which he labeled "the most dangerous legacy of the cold war" – and committed to hosting a summit within a year to focus on reducing and then eliminating nuclear weapons.
The president took specific note of both North Korea and Iran, saying Iran has "a clear choice": either become a contributing member of the international community by abandoning its uranium-enrichment program or continue down the road of international isolation.
Of North Korea, Obama said, "[it] must know that the path to security and respect will never come through threats and illegal weapons."
Iran is expected to pay as much attention to how North Korea fares in its standoff with the US and other international powers as it does to warnings from the Obama administration. Pyongyang has cited a spat with the US over verification of dismantling its nuclear facilities in refusing to return to six-party talks. Iran is in its own standoff with the international community over its refusal to abandon a program that could lead to development of a nuclear weapon.
The Bush administration relied on the six-party talks to arrive at an accord with Pyongyang last year, in which North Korea would dismantle its nuclear weapons and facilities in exchange for economic aid and a path to diplomatic normalization.
Like North Korea, Iran is subject to various UN resolutions and sanctions over its nuclear pursuits and its defiance of the international community. And like Pyongyang, Tehran is thought to be hoping to use its nuclear program – and the destabilizing threat it poses to a strategically crucial region – to extract some kind of "grand security bargain" from the US.
Still, the consensus among analysts is that Pyongyang is pursuing missile development for reasons of both prestige and economic survival. Sunday's rocket launch came just ahead of this week's opening of North Korea's parliamentary session. The parliament is nothing more than a rubber stamp of the Kim regime, but nonetheless the missile launch will allow Kim to dampen doubts about his power and health.
At the same time, the launch, despite its contested success, allows the North to demonstrate some progress to its international clients. Missile sales to Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, and Yemen have been among the few income-earners for the impoverished country in recent years.
Both Pyongyang and Tehran may have benefited from even a failed launch, says RAND's Hahm, noting the particularly close relationship North Korea maintains with Iran in the area of missile development.
"They say you learn as much from failure as you do from your successes," he says. "So this still may have been beneficial to both of them."
