WORLD_ US promises military action v North Korea if needed

US promises military action v North Korea if needed

PUBLISHED: 12 Mar 2013 09:07:00 | UPDATED: 13 Mar 2013 03:07:27

Anne Gearan and Chico Harlan


The Obama administration has bluntly warned Pyongyang it will use military force if necessary to protect the US and its allies in Asia from a North Korean nuclear strike or to prevent the impoverished North from selling nuclear weapons or expertise.

Washington announced fresh sanctions against North Korea on Monday amid rising tension on the Korean Peninsula. The US military has also begun annual joint exercises with ally South Korea, over objections from North Korea and an announcement that it would nullify the 60-year armistice that ended the Korean War.

“Recently, North Korean officials have made some highly provocative statements,” White House national security adviser Thomas Donilon told the Asia Society in New York.

“North Korea’s claims may be hyperbolic, but as to the policy of the United States, there should be no doubt. We will draw upon the full range of our capabilities to protect against, and to respond to, the threat posed to us and to our allies by North Korea,” he said.

Mr Donilon said that while the US would like better relations with North Korea, it “refuses to reward bad North Korean behaviour”. The US, he said, “will not play the game of accepting empty promises or yielding to threats”.

The US is one of five nations that have sought to negotiate a buyout of the North Korean nuclear program. The North has tested three nuclear devices and is assumed to be gradually perfecting the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead far from its own shores.

On Monday, the rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula were underscored by the North’s announcement that it had “completely scrapped” the 1953 armistice agreement.

The armistice has kept a shaky peace on the peninsula for 60 years, and the North’s apparent withdrawal, coupled with its severing of a communications hotline at the demilitarised border on Monday, makes it more difficult for South Korea and the US to prevent or resolve disputes with Pyongyang.

North Korea has made several similar announcements in the past, most recently in 2009, and analysts cautioned this latest declaration could prove to be bluster. Experts also noted that Pyongyang, whether bound by the ceasefire or not, has occasionally ignored its terms, most notably with fatal attacks on the South in 2010.

Still, anxiety about the North is particularly high now for the US and its allies because they have little insight into the decision-making style of Kim Jong-un, who took power of the opaque police state in December 2011.

Mr Kim last week visited troops on several Yellow Sea islets off North Korea’s southern coast, not far from a South Korean island that was shelled in 2010. According to a state media account of the visit, he “reconfirmed in detail reinforced firepower strike means and targets of the enemy.”

The new sanctions unveiled on Monday by the Obama administration target North Korea’s main foreign exchange bank and several of the country’s top economic leaders. The Foreign Trade Bank of North Korea was singled out because of its alleged support for companies linked to the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, said David Cohen, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

The sanctions freeze any US assets that may be owned by the bank, and were a warning to other countries trading with North Korea. “We urge financial institutions around the world to be particularly wary of the risks of doing business [with the trade bank],” he said.

The Washington Post

READ next:

■North Korean leader threatens strike on South
■North Korea says it has nullified 1953 armistice

Read more: http://www.afr.com/p/world/us_promises_military_action_north_Cwe1KeACsD7LKYjiqt5jXJ




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