S. Korea Counters North’s Nuclear Test by Joining Arms Interdiction Initiative

South Korea is upgrading its participation in a U.S., led international campaign to disrupt the traffic of weapons of mass destruction, a step it long avoided to prevent angering Pyongyang. The move comes after a nuclear test by the North, and several apparent short range missile launches.

A tourist walks past a diagram of North Korean missiles at the exhibition hall of an observation post in Paju near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two Koreas, 26 May 2009

South Korea said Tuesday it will now participate fully in the U.S. – led Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI. More than 90 nations take part in the program, which involves intelligence sharing and naval coordination to prevent nuclear and other illegal weapons from being transported. Until now, South Korea has only taken part as an observer.

North Korea warned last month that it would view South Korea’s full participation as a declaration of war. For weeks, South Korean officials delayed expected announcements it would join, but experts say they had no other choice after Monday’s underground nuclear weapons test by the North.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yoo Myung-hwan told lawmakers Tuesday joining PSI was the correct move for a “mature nation.”  

Yu said participating in PSI will help control North Korea’s development of dangerous nuclear materials.

Monday’s nuclear test was North Korea’s second, and according to seismic readings, may have been more powerful than the first. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak says he will work closely with the United States and other nations to seek a strong response.

He says he believes it is necessary to let North Korea know having nuclear programs will prove to be a bigger disadvantage than not having them.

Separately, North Korea fired three short range missiles off its east coast Monday. On Tuesday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported the North fired more short-range missiles off the same coast.

Dan Pinkston, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, warned against reading too much into the missile launches as a political message. He says the launches are more likely aimed at enforcing a two-day ban on ships off its East coast North Korea issued on Monday.

“They’re just doing their military preparedness and doing their operational exercises and it’s for those air defense purposes, and anti-ship purposes. That’s what the system is for,” Pinkston said.

North Korea experts suggest two main motivations for recent provocations. They say the North is seeking to raise the urgency of diplomacy with the North on the agenda of President Obama, so that Pyongyang can win concessions from Washington in one-on-one talks. Other analysts say North Korea has set aside diplomacy for now, and is sprinting toward full-fledged international recognition as a nuclear power, like India and Pakistan.

At any rate, little optimism remains for the future of six-nation talks aimed at getting rid of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Brian Myers, a professor at Dongseo University who specializes in North Korean media, says the six-party framework is dead.

“They stress over and over again in domestic propaganda, ‘we are not going back to the six party talks.’ Now I realize that North Korea has said in the past has said in the past, it ain’t coming back, and then it comes back anyway,” Myers said. “But this is the first time I’ve seen it emphasized in the domestic media to that extent.”

Myers says North Korea’s attitude was probably shaped by the Obama administration’s signals that it was willing to engage North Korea on a bilateral basis.

Filed under: North & South Korea , North Korea, S. Korea Counters North's Nuclear Test by Joining Arms Interdiction Initiative, nuclear test

Two Koreas to meet amid rising tensions

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) — Government officials from South Korea will visit North Korea on Tuesday to hold the first talks in a year, state media said.

The talks come at a tense time when North Korea is trying to restart its nuclear facilities and after the communist nation apparently test-fired its long-range missile, the Taepodong-2, under the guise of launching a satellite into space.

The talks, which are the first since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in February last year, were proposed by North Korea, the Yonhap news agency said Sunday.

The communist nation said it sought to address “issues related to the Kaesong industrial complex,” Yonhap said. The complex is a collaborative venture between the two nations.

The delegation is led by a top official of the Kaesong project, Lee Jong-joo, a Unification Ministry spokeswoman, told Yonhap.

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“About 10 officials involved in the Kaesong complex are scheduled to visit Kaesong,” Lee said, according to Yonhap. “Our main concerns are centered on the safety of our citizens in the Kaesong complex and its stable development.”

Rapprochement talks between the two have hit a wall since the conservative South Korean leader took office with a tougher stance toward the North than his liberal predecessor Roh Moo-Hyun.

The two countries have technically remained in conflict since the Korean War ended in 1953, although relations have warmed somewhat in the past few years. The Korean conflict ended in a truce, but no formal peace treaty was ever signed.

Filed under: North & South Korea , Korea, Tensions, Two Korea, Two Koreas to meet amid rising tensions

S. Korea: N. Korea launches rocket

 North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday in what U.S. and South Korean officials deemed a provocative act.

A recent satellite image shows a rocket sitting on its launch pad in northeast North Korea.

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While the United States and South Korea confirmed the rocket launch, the payload of the rocket remains unclear. North Korea has said the rocket was to carry a satellite into space, but the United States, South Korea and other nations fear it could be a missile with a warhead attached.

“With this provocative act, North Korea has ignored its international obligations, rejected unequivocal calls for restraint, and further isolated itself from the community of nations,” U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement after the launch.

“We will immediately consult with our allies in the region, including Japan and (South Korea), and members of the U.N. Security Council to bring this matter before the Council,” Obama added. “I urge North Korea to abide fully by the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council and to refrain from further provocative actions.”

The council scheduled a meeting for Sunday afternoon after Japan’s representative to the United Nations, Yukio Takasu, sent a letter requesting an urgent meeting in response to the launch.

A spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he “regrets that, against strong international appeal, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) went ahead with its planned launch. Given the volatility in the region, as well as a stalemate in interaction among the concerned parties, such a launch is not conducive to efforts to promote dialogue, regional peace and stability.”

A senior Obama administration official in Washington confirmed that the rocket did clear Japan.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters after the launch that the country’s military was not forced to intercept any missile, which it had pledged to do if necessary. Preliminary data show that two objects, possibly boosters from the rocket, apparently fell around Japan, one in the Sea of Japan and one in the Pacific Ocean. Watch Japan’s reaction to the launch »

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Japanese ships were moving Sunday to the area they believe the rocket parts fell in an effort to retrieve them, government officials said.

Still, Kawamura said his government’s position is that even a communications satellite would be in violation of the Security Council resolution, saying Japan “formally denounces” the move.

The rocket — launched at about 11:30 a.m. local time Sunday (2:30 a.m. GMT) — was a “provocative act in violation” of a U.N. Security Council resolution on North Korea’s weapons program, Fred Lash, a State Department spokesman, told reporters. Watch questions concerning the rocket’s payload »

An October 2006 resolution condemned North Korea for missile launches in the summer and a nuclear test that same month

“We don’t know anything on whether it had an orbital configuration,” Lash said about whether the rocket might have carried a satellite. “There is nothing confirmed.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, the former director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, told CNN that the launch apparently involved a “multi-stage rocket,” with possibly up to three stages, referring to reports that debris fell off the waters of Japan. Watch analysis of possible motivations for the launch »

“That means it was able to go through the staging event,” signaling success in the rocket reaching long-range capability.

The office of the South Korean president condemned the launch, calling it a “serious threat” to world peace, the state-sponsored Yonhap news agency reported.

“We cannot withhold our regrets and disappointment that North Korea has caused such a serious threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula and in the world by firing a long-range rocket when the entire world is joining efforts to overcome the global economic crisis,” Lee Dong-kwan, a presidential spokesman said, according to Yonhap.

Earlier Sunday, before the launch, South Korea’s national security council called an emergency meeting amid concerns that a North Korean rocket launch was imminent, a presidential spokesperson told CNN on Sunday.

Western nations fear that North Korea plans a ballistic missile test rather than a satellite launch, but the Obama administration’s special envoy to the Six-Party Talks, Stephen Bosworth, said last week that it didn’t matter if the North Koreans were trying to put a satellite in space or testing a ballistic missile that could threaten Japan or the United States.

“Whether it is a satellite launch or a missile launch, in our judgment makes no difference. It is a provocative act,” Bosworth said.

Bosworth said the U.S. stands ready — after a launch — to participate in United Nations deliberations on new sanctions against North Korea, and will be “working very closely with our partners to ensure that after the dust of the missiles settles a bit, we get back to the longer-term priority of the missile — of the Six-Party Talks.”

And, he said, he was prepared to go to Pyongyang after a launch, if invited.

“In my experience in dealing with North Koreans, pressure is not the most productive line of approach,” he said. “You have to combine pressure with incentives and I think we are in a position to begin talking about things that we can provide and do what the North Koreans would find positive,” which included talking about normalizing the relationship between North Korea and the United States.

U.S. Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued a statement late Saturday.

“It is alarming that North Korea carried out this missile launch in direct defiance of the international community,” Berman said. “The test is an unnecessary provocation that raises tensions in the region, and I urge the North Koreans to stop using their missile and WMD programs to threaten their neighbors and the rest of the world.”

Filed under: North & South Korea , North Korea, rocket, South Korea

North Korea reopens border to South Koreans

North Korea fully reopened its border to South Koreans on Tuesday, without explaining its reversal, the South’s Unification Ministry said.

Cross-border gates between North and South Korea were closed on March 9.

The communist nation shut its border on March 9, calling 12-day U.S.-South Korean military exercises a threat to its safety. But on Tuesday, North Korea normalized visits by South Korean workers and cargo trucks to an industrial complex jointly run with the South, Yonhap said.

“The North Korean side sent us a letter of approval this morning,” the news agency quoted Unification Ministry official Lee Jong-joo as saying. The letter did not explain the North’s reversal, Lee told Yonhap.

Two batches of workers, totaling 287 people, crossed the border into North Korea on Tuesday, according to the Unification Ministry. More than 300 were scheduled to return at the end of the workday.

North Korea had partly opened its border Monday, allowing nearly 300 South Koreans to return home. Many of the South Koreans work at the industrial complex in the North Korean border town of Kaesong.

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The border closing was part of a recent series of aggressive moves by North Korea, which included cutting the last remaining communications channel between North and South; saying that the North could not guarantee the safety of South Korean passenger jets in its airspace during the annual joint military exercises; and threatening to retaliate if a “satellite” launch from its northeastern coast was intercepted, saying interference would “mean a war.”

U.S. and South Korean officials have said that North Korea appears to be preparing to test-fire its long-range missile, the Taepodong-2, under the guise of launching a satellite into space. The missile is thought to have an intended range of about 4,200 miles (6,700 kilometers) that, if true, could give it the capability of striking Alaska or Hawaii

Filed under: North & South Korea , North Korea, North Korea reopens border to South Koreans, South Korea