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NKorea launch threatens to undo disarmament talks
JEAN H. LEE - The Associated Press
Issue date: 3/30/09 Section: News
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea's plans to launch a rocket as early as this week in defiance of warnings threatens to undo years of fitful negotiations toward dismantling the regime's nuclear program.
The U.S., South Korea and Japan have told the North that any rocket launch - whether it's a satellite or a long-range missile - would violate a 2006 U.N. Security Council Resolution prohibiting Pyongyang from any ballistic activity, and could draw sanctions.
North Korea said sanctions would violate the spirit of disarmament agreements, and said it would treat the pacts as null and void if punished for exercising its sovereign right to send a satellite into space.
"Even a single word critical of the launch" from the Security Council will be regarded as a "blatant hostile act," a spokesman with North Korea's foreign ministry said Thursday, according the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency. "All the processes for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which have been pushed forward so far, will be brought back to what used to be before their start and necessary strong measures will be taken."
That would be a sharp reversal from June 2008 when the North made a promising move toward disarmament, dramatically blowing up a cooling reactor at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex.
But the regime routinely backtracks on agreements, refuses to abide by international rules and wields its nuclear program like a weapon when it needs to win concessions from Washington or Seoul, analysts say.
"History has shown them that the more provocative they are, the more attention they get. The more attention they get, the more they're offered," Peter M. Beck, a Korean affairs expert who teaches at American University in Washington and Yonsei University in Seoul, said Sunday.
Despite years of negotiations and impoverished North Korea's growing need for outside help, it's clear the talks have done little to curb the regime's drive to build - and sell - its atomic arsenal, experts say.
The U.S., South Korea and Japan have told the North that any rocket launch - whether it's a satellite or a long-range missile - would violate a 2006 U.N. Security Council Resolution prohibiting Pyongyang from any ballistic activity, and could draw sanctions.
North Korea said sanctions would violate the spirit of disarmament agreements, and said it would treat the pacts as null and void if punished for exercising its sovereign right to send a satellite into space.
"Even a single word critical of the launch" from the Security Council will be regarded as a "blatant hostile act," a spokesman with North Korea's foreign ministry said Thursday, according the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency. "All the processes for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which have been pushed forward so far, will be brought back to what used to be before their start and necessary strong measures will be taken."
That would be a sharp reversal from June 2008 when the North made a promising move toward disarmament, dramatically blowing up a cooling reactor at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex.
But the regime routinely backtracks on agreements, refuses to abide by international rules and wields its nuclear program like a weapon when it needs to win concessions from Washington or Seoul, analysts say.
"History has shown them that the more provocative they are, the more attention they get. The more attention they get, the more they're offered," Peter M. Beck, a Korean affairs expert who teaches at American University in Washington and Yonsei University in Seoul, said Sunday.
Despite years of negotiations and impoverished North Korea's growing need for outside help, it's clear the talks have done little to curb the regime's drive to build - and sell - its atomic arsenal, experts say.
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