President Barack Obama has said the US will work with the UN to tighten sanctions against North Korea in the wake of another missile launch. But the US is also still open to dialogue, Obama said.
Image: Reuters/J. Ernst
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Obama said the US will also increase efforts to stop North Korea gaining access to international currency and technology by tightening loopholes in the current sanctions regime.
He said the recent ballistic missile launches were "provocations" that flouted international law and "would only lead to further isolation."
"We are going to work diligently together with the most recent UN sanctions," Obama told reporters after meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye. "We're going to work together to make sure we're closing loopholes and make them even more effective."
However Washington has said it is still open to dialogue: "If it is willing to recognize its international obligations and enforce the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the opportunities for us to dialogue with them are there," Obama said. "We do not have any interest in an offensive approach to North Korea."
A surface-to-surface medium long-range strategic ballistic rocketImage: picture-alliance/dpa/Kcna
North Korea fired three ballistic missiles off its east coast Monday. They traveled about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) and landed in the sea 200 to 250 km (120 to 160 miles) west of Hokkaido, Japan's northern-most main island.
It was widely viewed as a show of force timed to get media attention as world leaders visited the region for a series of summits. Obama and other heads of state gathered in China over the weekend for the Group of 20 economic summit. Obama went on to the Laos capital for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN.)
"We have over many years seen North Korea try to find ways to evade sanctions, try to find ways to access foreign currency, try to find ways to access sensitive technologies using front-companies for their activities," the US's deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said.
North Korea has repeatedly flouted Security Council resolutions demanding an end to its nuclear and ballistic missile activities and has continued to launch missiles, escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the region.
Sanctions since 2006
North Korea has been under UN sanctions since 2006. The 15-member Security Council toughened its sanctions in March in response to North Korea's fourth nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket in February.
North Korea is banned from importing or exporting nuclear or missile items and technology as well as luxury goods.
The March resolution expanded the list of banned items, requiring countries to freeze the assets of companies linked to the North's nuclear and missile programs. They also required mandatory inspections of cargo leaving and entering North Korea by land, sea or air and a ban on all sales or transfers of small arms and light weapons to Pyongyang. Diplomats from the North who engaged in "illicit activities" were to be expelled.
North Korea fires three ballistic missiles
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UN condemns launches
The UN Security Council on Tuesday also condemned the launches and threatened "further significant measures" if it refuses to stop its nuclear and missile tests. It gave no indication of what "further significant measures" it might take.
Japan's UN Ambassador Koro Bessho said he was encouraged that in Tuesday's council meeting "there was much stronger show of unity" than in past discussions. The tests not only threaten Japan's national security but the region and beyond, he said. He stressed that the missiles were launched without any prior notification and could have hit planes or ships.
South Korea's deputy UN ambassador Hahn Choong Hee said the international community should be united in sending a "clear and unequivocal message to North Korea that if they continue to provoke and violate their international commitments and sanctions, they will face much stronger and insurmountable and significant counter-measures from the international community."
China's UN Ambassador Liu Jieyi, reportedly annoyed that the latest missiles were fired during the G20 summit, told reporters as he left the meeting that the council would work on a press statement. But he did not mention any further council action.
jbh/jm (AP, Reuters)
North Korea in pictures: a rare glimpse into the isolated country
A team of journalists explored North Korea for a week, accompanied by officials who monitored the images and ensured not a single citizen was interviewed. The secluded country opened up and revealed itself.
The reporters from AP covered over 2,150 kilometers (1,336 miles), in a country of barely 25,000 kilometers of roads, merely 724 of those paved. They came back with only their photos as evidence of the life in the northern part of the secluded country. In the picture: A woman walks along a road southeast of Pyongyang in North Korea's North Hwanghae province.
A North Korean man sits by a cooking fire he built to roast potatoes and chicken in the town of Samjiyon, in Ryanggang province. Possibly more than any other populated place on earth, North Korea is terra incognita, but the AP team was granted access to see North Korea and travel through places that, they were told, no foreign journalist and few foreigners had been allowed to see before.
A boulder lies on a path near the peak of Mount Paektu in North Korea's Ryanggang province. North Koreans venerate Mount Paektu for its natural beauty, but more importantly because it is considered the home of the North Korean revolution. They also consider the mountain sacred as the place of their ancestral origin.
Farmers walk in a rainstorm with their cattle near the town of Hyesan, North Korea in Ryanggang province. "To get out of Pyongyang, we weaved our way around buses, streetcars, the black sedans of party officials and fleets of colorful new taxis that have over the past few years become commonplace," says Eric Talmadge, one of the jourmalists who participated in the journey.
Young North Korean schoolchildren help to fix pot holes in a rural road in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. The country's best road is the 200-kilometer stretch of highway connecting the capital to the east coast port city of Wonsan. Beyond Wonsan, potholes, cracks or sudden patches of dirt road make travel a bumpy experience.
North Korean residents walk on along a river in the town of Kimchaek, in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. The once-productive cities along its east coast, like the coal mining town of Kilju and the nearby city of Kimchaek - built around a sprawling but now eerily quiet ironworks complex - have become a rust belt, gritty and relentlessly gray.
The remains of lunch left on a restaurant table in the city of Wonsan, North Korea. The government "minders" accompanied the journalists throughout the entire trip. Like foreign tourists, the AP team only saw a bare trace of the deprivation residents experience. Most of the country's citizens cannot afford proper housing, let alone a visit to a restaurant.
The journalists' itineary was dictated by North Korea's terms. There would be no stopping to interview random people. "It's quite possible none of them had ever seen an American before," said AP's Eric Talmadge, "but our presence went unacknowledged. No glances were exchanged. No words were spoken." Here boys are playing soccer in the town of Hyesan, in the northern Ryanggang province.
North Korean men share a picnic lunch and North Korean-brewed and bottled Taedonggang beer along the road in North Korea's North Hwanghae province. This year, according to United Nations experts, the country could come closer to feeding itself than it has in decades. But hunger remains a serious problem, with a third of North Korean children stunted in growth due to poor nutrition.
A farmer carries a fully grown cabbage after harvesting it from the main crop which will be harvested early November, on the outskirts of Pyongyang. About four-fifths of North Korea's land is too rugged to farm. Providing enough food to feed the nation is a struggle for North Korea, which suffered a near cataclysmic famine in the 1990s.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Wong Maye-E
No detour allowed
A man works on his car as others sit next to the Wonsan Sea in North Korea. For the most part, AP's reporters were not allowed to detour from their pre-approved route, which, to no one's surprise, did not include nuclear facilities or prison camps.
A group of young North Koreans enjoys a picnic on the beach in Wonsan. "Even on the loneliest of lonely highways, we would never be without a 'minder,' whose job was to monitor and supervise our activities," Talmadge explains. "We were not to take photographs of any checkpoints or military installations."
North Korean people rest next to the railroad tracks in a town in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. "Though we would not get to know the people along the way, the country itself had a great deal to say. And it was opening up before us," Talmadge said upon his return. "We had been granted unprecedented access."
