Asia jittery as UN takes on nuke crisis

Star Publications (Malaysia) ^ | 2003/4/10

[jedi150]

Asia jittery as UN takes on nuke crisis

SEOUL: The United Nations intervened for the first time yesterday in the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula, prompting warnings of war from North Korea and concern that the world body could make a dangerous situation even worse.

The 15-member UN Security Council convened in New York for a meeting seen as a victory for US efforts to cast the crisis as a challenge to the entire world community but leaves North Korea's Asian neighbours jittery about how the unpredictable regime will react.

Just hours before UN diplomats were due to sit down for talks, the Stalinist state issued a clear threat to Japanese security, reminding its North East Asian neighbour that it lay within “striking distance” of North Korean weaponry.

In the run-up to the meeting, North Korea said the Security Council deliberations were a “prelude to war.”

Though all five permanent members of the UN Security Council oppose North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons drive, the unity ends there.

Divisions within the council indicate that Washington may be on collision course with Moscow and Beijing and no consensus is likely to emerge soon on a statement condemning North Korea's recent unilateral withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Sanctions are even less likely.

Pyongyang insists that it would view any sanctions statement as an outright “declaration of war.”

China and Russia oppose a UN role and South Korea and Japan view Security Council intervention with trepidation while the European Union has also expressed reservations.

South Korea, with more at stake than any other nation in the event of war with North Korea, is opposed to the use of force or sanctions of any kind.

South Korea's new president Roh Moo-Hyun will travel to Washington next month for a May 14 summit with US President George W. Bush aimed at reaching a “common stance,” his office said yesterday.

The United States has been pressing the United Nations to take up North Korea since October, when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted pursuing nuclear weapons despite a 1994 accord to freeze its nuclear programme.

However, Washington has not ruled out the use of force in dealing with the Stalinist leadership in Pyongyang.

Since October, North Korea has expelled UN nuclear inspectors, restarted its mothballed nuclear reactor at Yongbyon that can produce weapons grade plutonium, withdrawn from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and test-launched missiles.

And the war in Iraq has only served to complicate the situation.

North Korea, which was included along with Iraq and Iran in President Bush's “axis of evil,” maintains that it will be the next target of American military action.

In a rare statement on Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency from a senior military official, Kim Yong Chun, chief of the general staff of the (North) Korean People's Army, said his country was in the process of being transformed into one massive fortification. – AFP

[jedi150]

Asia jittery as UN takes on nuke crisis

And as Seoul or Tokyo is burning from a Nuke they would still be debating the issue!

Do France, Germany or Russia have any contracts with N.Korea? If so a guarenteed veto is in the works!

[Support Free Republic]

God Bless America! God Bless This Man! Some of us VRWC volunteers think freedom is worth fighting for.
	Please join us. Or mail checks to FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794 or you can use PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD- It is in the breaking news sidebar!

[sarasota]

Let's see now: Syria or North Korea. Who gets to go first?

[pepsi_junkie]

The United Nations intervened for the first time yesterday in the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula, prompting warnings of war from North Korea and concern that the world body could make a dangerous situation even worse.

When has the UN ever made any dangerous situation better? And rest assured, the US and our real allies like Britain will have to clean up whatever mess this gang of fools creates.

[Semper Vigilantis]

"Asia jittery as UN takes on nuke crisis"

Wouldn't you be jittery if your future was in the UN's hands?