Asia should back sanctions

PHUKET – US SECRETARY of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday urged Asian nations to enforce sanctions against North Korea, sparking an unusually personal outburst from the nuclear-armed communist state.

asia-clinton She was later expected to hold out both incentives and the threat of reprisals in a bid to prod Pyongyang into scrapping its nuclear aims, amid concerns that military-ruled Myanmar is now receiving help from North Korea.

North Korea hit back by describing six-party disarmament talks on its atomic weapons programme as dead and urging the United States to drop its ‘hostile’ policy, while calling Mrs Clinton unintelligent and a ‘funny lady’.

‘North Korea must end its pursuit of nuclear weapons and fulfil its pledges. North Korea’s response in turn has been more threatening behaviour,’ Mrs Clinton told the 26-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (ARF).

Speaking in the Thai resort of Phuket, she said Washington would use ‘every avenue’ to get North Korea to drop its nuclear programme, adding: ‘The ASEAN Regional Forum can play an important role in achieving this outcome.’

Kim Jong-Il’s hermit regime bolted the six-party negotiations with the United States, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea after the UN Security Council censured it for a long-range rocket launch in April.

North Korea then conducted an underground nuclear test in May, triggering a Security Council resolution for beefed-up inspections of shipments going to and from the country and an expanded arms embargo.

Mrs Clinton ramped up concerns over Pyongyang’s activities earlier this week when she said there were concerns that it was transferring nuclear technology to fellow pariah state Myanmar.

The US secretary of state – who met her counterparts from Russia, Japan, South Korea and China on Wednesday – called on the ARF participant states to continue carrying out the terms of the latest resolution.

‘That means denying North Korean vessels access to any trans-shipment points and cooperating with the enforcement of financial sanctions against those designated entities that support North Korea’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons,’ she said. — AFP

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