U.S. denounces N. Korea for continued development of WMD programs

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (Yonhap) -- The United States Tuesday denounced North Korea
for continuing to develop long-range missiles and nuclear weapons in violation of
U.N. resolutions banning such activities.

"Today, Pyongyang continues to pursue intercontinental ballistic missile
technologies, develop nuclear weapons and export weapons in contravention to
international law and treaties," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. "It also
maintains an unfortunate and threatening posture toward our ally South Korea, and
an unhelpful disposition toward our ally Japan."
North Korea is under sanctions imposed after its nuclear and missile tests early
last year.
Mullen also said that "North Korea's autocratic government makes it a persistent
wild card in Asia."
His remarks follow the release Monday of the Ballistic Missile Defense Review by
the Pentagon to assess the U.S. government's missile defense policy in the coming
years.
Despite North Korea's failure so far to orbit a satellite, the review said, "If
there are no major changes in its national security strategy in the next decade,
it will be able to mate a nuclear warhead to a proven delivery system."
That is the focus of the U.S. missile defense initiative, said Michele Flournoy,
undersecretary of defense for policy.
"U.S. homeland missile defense efforts are focused on regional actors such as
North Korea and Iran, and are not intended to affect the strategic balance with
Russia or China," Flournoy said Monday.
Another report, the Quadrennial Defense Review, described North Korea's nuclear
weapons program as a major U.S. security concern.
"The instability or collapse of a WMD-armed state is among our most troubling
concerns," the review said in clear reference to North Korea. "Such an occurrence
could lead to rapid proliferation of WMD material, weapons and technology, and
could quickly become a global crisis posing a direct physical threat to the
United States and all other nations."
North Korea conducted its second nuclear test last year, after one in 2006, and
has boycotted the six-party talks on ending its nuclear weapons programs,
demanding sanctions be lifted and a peace treaty signed to replace a fragile
armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. The talks involve the two Koreas,
the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.
North Korea's ailing leader, Kim Jong-il, believed to have suffered a stroke in
2008, is apparently ceding power to his third and youngest son, Jong-un, in the
first third-generation power transition in any communist state. Some analysts
fear a regime collapse in the process.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)

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