Lee, Obama call for tough reaction to N. Korea, reaffirm alliance

(ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead paras; UPDATES with additional remarks, information)
By Byun Duk-kun
SEOUL, May 26 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S.
counterpart Barack Obama agreed Tuesday to seek a stern, unified international
reaction to North Korea's latest nuclear test while the U.S. president said
Washington will continue to provide a strong nuclear deterrence for South Korea.

The agreement and Obama's remarks came in a brief telephone conversation between
the two leaders.
"President Obama said the Korea-U.S. alliance was rock solid and that he wished
to make it clear to South Korean citizens that his country's military strength
and nuclear umbrella are extended wide enough to protect South Korea, and that
its willingness to do so remains firm," Lee Dong-kwan, a spokesman for Seoul's
presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, told reporters.
The conversation between Lee and Obama came one day after Pyongyang said it
conducted an underground nuclear test early Monday. The North detonated a nuclear
device October 2006 in its first-ever nuclear experiment.
A Cheong Wa Dae official earlier noted the communist state may have been hoping
for direct talks with Washington while shutting out Seoul.
During his conversation with Obama, the South Korean president said the
international community must work to punish North Korea, noting the communist
nation was instead rewarded with direct negotiations with Washington after it
conducted its first nuclear test, according to the Cheong Wa Dae spokesman.
"We can say the conversation between the two leaders once again confirmed that
North Korea's attempt to shun South Korea while talking directly with the United
States will never be realized if that was ever one of North Korea's goals," the
spokesman said.
President Lee earlier condemned the North Korea's nuclear test as a
disappointment while Obama called it a "great threat" to the peace and security
of the world.
"Now the United States and the international community must take action in
response," Obama told reporters in Washington.
Under a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted shortly after the North's first
nuclear test in 2006, Pyongyang is prohibited from any nuclear or ballistic
missile activities.
bdk@yna.co.kr
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