Obama says world must put pressure on Pyongyang

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama assailed North Korea for new missile tests, saying the world must “stand up to” Pyongyang and demand that it honour a promise to abandon it nuclear ambitions.

Appearing on the White House steps yesterday, Obama said North Korea’s latest nuclear underground test and subsequent test firings of short-range ground to air missiles “pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action.”

It was his second statement within hours of the tests, the latest in a number of nuclear actions that Obama said “endanger the people of north-east Asia.” He called it “a blatant violation of international law” and said that it contradicted North Korea’s “own prior commitments”. Obama had released a written statement chastising the North Koreans in the early morning hours of Monday.

In his statement in the White House Rose Garden, he noted that the latest tests had drawn scorn around the world. Pyongyang’s actions “have flown in the face of UN resolutions” and had deepened its isolation, he said, “inviting stronger international pressure”.

“North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons,” the president said. “We will work with our friends and allies to stand up to this behaviour. The United States will never waver from our determination to protect our people and the peace and security of the world.”

In Pyongyang, North Korea said that it had carried out a powerful underground nuclear test – much larger than one conducted in 2006. The regime also test-fired three short-range, ground-to-air missiles later yesterday from the same north-eastern site where it launched a rocket last month, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed sources.

The rocket lift-off, widely believed to be a cover for a test of its long-range missile technology, drew censure from the UN Security Council, which scheduled a meeting for later yesterday.

Reining in Pyongyang’s nuclear programme has been a continuing problem for US administrations, dating to the Clinton administration. Former president George W Bush labelled North Korea as a country that was part of an international “axis of evil” but the United States subsequently removed Pyongyang from its list of official state sponsors of terrorism when it shut down a nuclear installation late in the Bush administration. The question now is calculating precisely the nature of a threat and what are options are available to the Obama administration.

Obama left no doubt about his intention to work with other world leaders to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on Pyongyang, and the US could still try to resuscitate so-called Six-Party talks with the North, as well as work with other nations at the UN. And while neither past administrations nor this one has taken the military option off the table, diplomacy seemed the card most likely to be played in the short term.

“We are gravely concerned by North Korea’s claims. We are analysing the data,” the State Department said in a statement.