U.S. repeats call for strong response amid UN inaction

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By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, April 7 (Yonhap) -- The United States reiterated Tuesday that it
wants a strong response from the U.N. Security Council to North Korea's rocket
launch despite foot dragging by China and Russia.

"And we, again, are going to be working toward, as I said yesterday, a strong and
effective response from the Security Council," State Department spokesman Robert
Wood said in a daily news briefing. "We want to have the right response to what
the North has done, and so we're going to continue to work very hard on this
track."
Wood's remarks come as the third day of the Security Council meeting was canceled
at the United Nations headquarters in New York due to a widening gap in the
positions of the U.S. and its allies and China and Russia over whether to further
sanction North Korea.
"A Security Council meeting will not convene today as the countries involved need
further consultations internally," said South Korea's U.N. ambassador, Park
In-kook.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also called for patience.
"Let's wait and see the results of the ongoing negotiations at the United
Nations," she said in a press availability with New Zealand Foreign Minister
Murray McCully. "Seventy-two hours is a long time in a news cycle. It's not a
long time in relations between nations or in the affairs of the Security
Council."
Clinton was referring to the discussions under way since Sunday at the Security
Council for possible sanctions against North Korea, which the U.S. and its allies
said violated U.N. Resolution 1718, which bans any ballistic and nuclear activity
by North Korea.
The U.S. views the launch as a cover by the North to test its ballistic missile
capability.
China and Russia, however, do not agree, insisting North Korea's launch of a
rocket for satellite delivery does not violate the resolution 1718, adopted in
2006 after North Korea's ballistic missile launch and detonation of its first
nuclear device.
Jack Pritchard, president of Korea Economic Institute, told a forum here that
China and "most likely the Russians don't agree that the space launch vehicle,
satellite, is the same thing as the ballistic missile."
"What occurred this past Sunday by North Korea was not a violation of the U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1718," he said. "That's the argument. And there is
plenty of evidence to suggest that technically and legally they may be right."
Sanctions under the resolution, including an embargo of trade involving weapons
and their parts and luxury goods, have largely been neglected as China greatly
watered down the resolution to make its implementation voluntary.
In an effort to make a breakthrough in the UNSC discussion, Clinton spoke with
her Chinese and Russian counterparts by telephone Monday, Wood said.
Some experts say the U.S. may eventually seek stronger implementation of the
existing sanctions rather than adopting a new resolution in order not to
jeopardize six-party talks, deadlocked since December over how to verify North
Korea's past and current nuclear activity.
North Korea has threatened to scrap the six-party talks if the rocket launch is
brought to the Security Council, and hinted at conducting a second nuclear test.
The Pentagon has said that the first stage of the rocket fell into waters of the
East Sea between Korea and Japan and the second and third stages together
splashed into waters off Hawaii without reaching space.
The range was reportedly about 3,200 km, although the U.S. military has not yet
fully released all the information on its flight path.
Though a failed attempt to orbit a satellite, the North's rocket launch is seen
as a demonstration of North Korea's capability to shoot a rocket more than 3,200
km, more than double the range it achieved in 1998.
The North's 2006 launch fizzled within one minute, and its first rocket launch in
1998 flew about 1,600 km.
Some analysts believe the rocket launch will revive the missile talks with North
Korea, suspended a decade ago under the Bill Clinton administration over
Pyongyang's demand that Washington pay up to US$1 billion annually in return for
the North's suspension of development, deployment and shipments of its missiles.
"At some appropriate time after this launch, the U.S. will reengage North Korea
bilaterally," Pritchard said. "It will be pure and simple bilateral discussions
outside of the context of the six-party talks."
Pritchard said he expects "no meaningful consequences, no penalties associated
with this launch, with the exception of some minor unilateral ones, most notably
by Japan."
hdh@yna.co.kr
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