02 July 2009

North Korea Must Stop Provocations and Return to Talks, U.S. Says

North Korea’s missile launches come as the international community coordinates the implementation of new U.N. sanctions.

By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer

Washington — The Obama administration describes North Korea’s launch of four short-range missiles July 2 as “not helpful” and “dangerous,” and calls on the North Koreans to return to talks with the international community.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters July 2 that reports of North Korean missile activities are not new and that the regime in Pyongyang “knows exactly what it has to do” in the wake of increasing international pressure.

According to the South Korean Defense Ministry, two of the missiles were launched from a base located near the eastern port of Wonsan and the others were launched from nearby Sinsang-ni. A Defense Ministry spokesman told South Korea’s Yonhap state news agency that all four were surface-to-ship missiles and they had been fired into the Sea of Japan. The missiles reportedly have a range of 140 kilometers (88 miles).

Kelly said North Korea “has to cut out … these kinds of provocative actions and return to the denuclearization talks.”

At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said July 2 that the Obama administration is continuing to monitor North Korean activities and remains hopeful the North Koreans will return to the Six-Party Talks to negotiate abandoning their nuclear program. The talks involve North Korea, China, South Korea, Russia, Japan and the United States.

On June 12, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1874, which imposes additional security and economic sanctions on North Korea, as well as a trade and arms embargo. The move came after North Korea tested a nuclear device in May and a long-range ballistic missile in April. The international community agreed that those actions are violations of Security Council resolution 1718 adopted in 2006. (See “United Nations Imposes Sanctions on North Korea.”)

Gibbs said the sanctions were adopted out of concern that the North Koreans were trying to move weapons and materials out of the country.

Ambassador Philip Goldberg, the U.S. coordinator for the implementation of resolution 1874, concluded meetings with Chinese officials in Beijing July 2 and will travel to Malaysia for meetings July 6 as part of his effort to encourage regional cooperation and collaboration to implement the sanctions against North Korea.

Speaking in Beijing July 2, Goldberg said his discussions are an ongoing process to make 1874 and previous Security Council resolutions work effectively.

“We intend to implement those resolutions with the overall goal of returning to a path of denuclearization and nonproliferation in the Korean Peninsula,” he said.

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