North Korea Threatens Military Strikes on South

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North Korea Threatens Military Strikes on South - Choe Sang-Han, New York Times. North Korea on Wednesday threatened to launch military strikes against South Korea if any of its ships were stopped or searched as part of an American-led operation to intercept vessels suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction. South Korea agreed to join the global interdiction program after North Korea tested a nuclear device on Monday. The North had earlier warned the South not to participate in the effort, known as the Proliferation Security Initiative. “We consider this a declaration of war against us,” an unidentified North Korean military spokesman said Wednesday in a statement carried by the North’s official news agency KCNA. “Any hostile act against our peaceful vessels including search and seizure will be considered an unpardonable infringement on our sovereignty and we will immediately respond with a powerful military strike.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/world/asia/28korea.html?ref=world

North Korea Issues Heated Warning to South - Blaine Harden, Washington Post. North Korea announced Wednesday that it is no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War, the latest and most profound diplomatic aftershock from the country's latest nuclear test two days earlier. North Korea also warned that it would respond "with a powerful military strike" should its ships be stopped by international forces trying to stop the export of missiles and weapons of mass destruction. The twin declarations, delivered by the country's state news agency, followed South Korea's announcement Tuesday that it would join the navies that will stop and inspect suspicious ships at sea. North Korea has repeatedly said that such participation would be a "declaration of war." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052600555.html


North Korea Warns on Ship Searches - Evan Ramstad, Wall Street Journal. North Korea's military said in a statement Wednesday that it would respond with "immediate, strong military measures" if South Korea actually stops and searches any of the North's ships under a US-led effort to halt nuclear-weapons trafficking. In the new statement, North Korea reiterated an earlier one in which it said the South's active participation in the effort would be a declaration of war and went on to add that it no longer considers itself bound by the armistice that ended the Korean War of the 1950s. The new statement was issued by the North's Korean Central News Agency. South Korea on Tuesday had lashed back at the North's latest weapons tests by announcing full participation in the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative. After South Korea's move, North Korea test-fired three short-range missiles, a spokesman for the South Korean military's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Wednesday. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124330920945753575.html


Analysts Worry Threatening N. Korea with Sanctions Could Create Escalation - Andre de Nesnera, Voice of America. North Korea detonated an underground nuclear explosion in the northeast of the country - its second nuclear test since 2006. David Albright, President of the Institute for Science and International Security, has been following North Korea's nuclear program for many years. "In 2006, it [North Korea] was trying to achieve an explosion of four kilotons and it only got about half a kiloton - so it was generally viewed as not very successful. This time, it looks to be anywhere from one to five kilotons and if North Korea was trying to get four kilotons, then you'd have to judge the test a success," he said. Albright says as a comparison, the bomb the United States detonated over Nagasaki at the end of World War II had a yield of 20 kilotons. http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-05-26-voa51.cfm


Verifying North Korean Nuke Test Will Take Time, Official Says - Gerry J. Gilmore, American Forces Press Service. It will take time before US and international officials can know with some certitude whether North Korea conducted an underground nuclear-device test yesterday, a senior Defense Department official said here today. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters that it’s too early to have definitive knowledge regarding yesterday’s purported North Korean underground nuclear test. “I suspect that some of the details that you’re looking for that more tightly define the characteristics of the event will come out like they did a couple of years ago, but that takes some time,” Whitman said. “If you go back to 2006, I think the [Director of National Intelligence] did something after there was sufficient time to collect the necessary evidence to be able to make a definitive statement.” North Korea’s nuclear device and ballistic-missile activities “pose a great threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action,” President Barack Obama told reporters yesterday at the White House. The United States and international organizations are working together to construct an assessment of North Korea’s most-recent purported nuclear test, Whitman said. It’s believed that North Korea carried out its first underground nuclear test in October 2006. North Korea also has conducted several missile and rocket tests over the past decade; the most-recent was a long-range rocket shot conducted in April. Whitman didn’t comment on news reports saying North Korea conducted short-range missile tests today. North Korea has conducted several missile tests over the past decade. In a highly publicized incident, North Korea fired a missile that passed over Japan in August 1998. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=54510


Report: North Korea Fires Another Short-Range Missile - Voice of America. A South Korean news report says North Korea has fired yet another short-range missile off its eastern coast. The Yonhap news agency reports that Pyongyang launched the missile into the sea late Tuesday. Earlier in the day, North Korea fired two short-range missiles. Yonhap says those followed three missile launches on Monday after what North Korea said was a nuclear test. The US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus South Korea and Japan, met Tuesday for discussions on how to deal with the North Korean actions. She said they held "very serious, concrete talks" on a possible resolution to impose additional sanctions on North Korea. http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-05-26-voa5.cfm


North Korea Said to Test More Missiles - John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times. Tensions on the Korean peninsula rose further Tuesday as Seoul announced that it would join a US-led initiative to curb nuclear trade, and North Korea reportedly test-launched three more short-range missiles. At the United Nations, representatives of the five permanent Security Council members, plus South Korea and Japan, began meetings that could lead to new sanctions against North Korea. North Korea said Monday that it had conducted a nuclear test and several short-range missile launches, drawing sharp criticism from world capitals and a warning that it had violated a Security Council resolution. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-korea-tensions27-2009may27,0,2320407.story


Washington Says North Korea Will 'Pay a Price' - David Gollust , Voice of America. The United States said Tuesday it is working for quick action in the UN Security Council to make North Korea "pay a price" for its nuclear test Monday. But officials say they still hope to get Pyongyang to return to Chinese-sponsored disarmament talks. State Department officials say the United States wants the Security Council to impose tangible costs on North Korea for defying a 2006 resolution and conducting its second nuclear test. But they also say they want to keep the door open for Pyongyang to come back to the negotiating table, where in 2007 it agreed in principle to scrap its nuclear program for energy aid and diplomatic benefits. The Obama administration is pleased with the early response from the United Nations, where Russia and China, which have resisted tough action on North Korea, joined in a strong statement condemning the nuclear test. http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-05-26-voa37.cfm


China Debates Its Bond with North Korea - Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times. When is it time to dump an old friend who insists on behaving badly? The debate is raging in China. North Korea's latest nuclear test raises the question of just how long the bonds forged between old communist allies will endure. The test was conducted barely 50 miles from the Chinese border. The ground rumbled in northeast China, and some schools were evacuated because of fears of an earthquake. "It was quite shocking. The location where they did this test was a lot closer to China than to where [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Il is living in Pyongyang," said Zhang Liangui, a Korea expert with Beijing's Central Party School, where Communist Party officials are trained. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-korea27-2009may27,0,4095573.story


Leadership Mystery Amid N. Korea’s Nuclear Work - Mark Landler, New York Times. In dealing with North Korea, American officials are reduced to studying two-month-old photographs of its reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, to calculate how long he is likely to live. The new administration’s North Korea team includes a special emissary who works part time as an academic dean and a State Department official who has yet to be confirmed by Congress. And as President Obama tries to find a way to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test and missile launchings, his senior aides acknowledge that every policy option employed by previous presidents over the past dozen years - whether hard or soft, political or economic - has been fruitless in stopping North Korea from building a nuclear weapon. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/world/asia/27nuke.html?ref=world


North Korea Tests Obama - Washington Times editorial. While President Obama pushes soft power, the North Korean dictator plays hardball. North Korea's underground nuclear test and missile trials show that the regime is probing Mr. Obama's resolve. Pyongyang apparently has concluded that the president's rhetoric of conciliation and understanding betrays serious weakness as a global leader. Like all tyrants, Kim Jong-il sees an open hand as a weak one. North Korea is determined to be a nuclear power. Pyongyang has vowed to continue missile tests and uranium enrichment. The Korean Central News Agency, the communist regime's mouthpiece, declared the regime's goal: to "further [increase] the power of nuclear weapons and steadily [develop] nuclear technology." http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/27/north-korea-tests-obama/


How to Reduce the Nuclear Threat - William J. Perry, Brent Scowcroft and Charles D. Ferguson, Wall Street Journal opinion. Monday's North Korean nuclear test was a dramatic reminder of the challenges to eliminating nuclear weapons world-wide. President Barack Obama has stated that he intends to pursue this goal while maintaining a reliable nuclear deterrent for the United States and its allies. But achieving nuclear abolition will likely require many years. Indeed, it is difficult to envision the necessary geopolitical conditions that would permit even approaching that goal. Unless the US and its partners re-energize international efforts to lessen the present dangers of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism, they will never have the hope of reaching this long-term objective. An effective strategy to reduce nuclear dangers must build on five pillars: revitalizing strategic dialogue with nuclear-armed powers, particularly Russia and China; strengthening the international nuclear nonproliferation regime; reaffirming the protection of the US nuclear umbrella to our allies; maintaining the credibility of the US nuclear deterrent; and implementing best security practices for nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials worldwide. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124338405214956695.html


A Shrinking Deterrent - Frank J. Gaffney Jr., Washington Times. North Korea celebrated Memorial Day with an underground test of a nuclear weapon reportedly the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. With that and a series of missile launches that day and subsequently, the regime in Pyongyang has sent an unmis- takable signal: The Hermit Kingdom has nothing but contempt for the so-called "international community" and the empty rhetoric and diplomatic posturing that usually precede new rewards for the North's bad behavior. The seismic waves from the latest detonation seem likely to rattle more than the windows and members of the UN Security Council. Even as that body huffs and puffs about Kim Jong-il's belligerence, Japan and South Korea are coming to grips with an unhappy reality: They increasingly are on their own in contending with a nuclear-armed North Korea.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/27/a-shrinking-deterrent/