Delegates from seven nations continued yesterday to seek a mutually acceptable U.N. resolution in response to North Korea's recent nuclear and missile tests, with Japan putting forth a potential compromise, Kyodo News reported (see GSN, June 2).
"It is a highly complex text," said Turkish Ambassador Baki Ilkin, who took over the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council for the month of June. "It takes time. It needs time"
The nations involved in hammering out the resolution are the five permanent Security Council members -- China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- along with Japan and South Korea. A fifth meeting on the document was canceled yesterday amid continued disagreements on the sanctions it might impose, sources told Kyodo.
Tokyo and Washington had suggested the Security Council forbid Pyongyang from importing or exporting any weapons and demand that U.N. member states enforce this ban by conducting thorough inspections of cargo entering or leaving North Korea.
However, China and Russia -- despite being more outwardly displeased with the North's latest round of provocations than they have been in the past -- have balked at the idea of further isolating their neighbor with tough sanctions. Historically wary of destabilizing Pyongyang and spurring a refugee crisis, the two nations support language indicating that the council would remove sanctions if North Korea vows not to test any more nuclear weapons and resumes involvement with the six-party denuclearization talks.
Japan has sought to solve this impasse by proposing less severe sanctions on trade, weapons and access to global financial networks against the North and softening the language that would make U.N. member states' cooperation with cargo checks "compulsory" (Kyodo News/Breitbart.com, June 2).
French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, one of the meetings' participants, said the group might present a draft resolution to the entire 15-member Security Council in the next few days, the Associated Press reported.
"I would hope that we will have something in the course of this week," Ripert said (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Taiwan News, June 2).
While the U.S. State Department reported progress on the negotiations, spokesman Robert Wood said a resolution was not immediately forthcoming, the Yonhap News Agency reported.
"I think we've seen some progress with regard to the resolution," Wood said, "but there's a lot of work to do."
He said the seven nations are scheduled to meet again today for another round of talks. He dismissed the notion that the sides had reached a stalemate.
"Just because it's taking more time, you shouldn't read it in any way as giving the North more leverage or us losing leverage," Wood said. "It's not really a question of leverage, it's a question of making sure that we get the strongest possible response to the North's activities" (Yonhap News I, June 2).
While U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice was negotiating the response to North Korea at the United Nations, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg today huddled with officials in South Korea, Agence France-Presse reported.
"We discussed the need to work together very closely in the event of any contingencies," Steinberg said after meeting with South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kwon Jong-rak and then Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan.
The two allies "share the same assessment of the dangers that we face by the developments in North Korea's missile and nuclear programs," he said.
Steinberg has already visited Japan during this trip and is scheduled to fly to China next (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, June 3).
One U.S. official said now that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il has announced his intention to bequeath control of the country to his youngest son, North Korea might cease its torrent of arms tests and diplomatic posturing, Yonhap reported.
"My guess is that the North Koreans are likely to come back to the bargaining table, especially now that it appears that the succession has been secured," the official said (Yonhap News Agency II, June 3).
The missile launches North Korea conducted last week have made it difficult for scientists evaluate the explosive yield of last week's purported nuclear test and whether it was a success, AP reported yesterday.
"It seems the radioactivity-level measurements have not been that good because the North kept firing missiles," said Cha Du-hyeon, a South Korean military scientist.
South Korea-based analyst Daniel Pinkston said that without precise data, observers would not be able to determine exactly how powerful the blast was, making it difficult to know by what degree the underground test improved upon the regime's 2006 blast. The force of the explosion has been estimated at a broad range -- anywhere between 2.5 and 8 kilotons.
"What is clear," Cha said, "is that they are making progress."
The missile tests also disrupted efforts by the South Korea, Japan and the United States to detect radiological particles in the atmosphere by plane.
"The firing of anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles were to deter U.S. and Japanese ships and aircraft from coming close to collect evidence of the nuclear test, while at the same time threatening the South," said South Korean defense expert Kim Sung-man (Eric Talmadge, Associated Press II/Google News, June 2).
The United States announced it plans to monitor activity in North Korea using unmanned spy planes, AFP reported.
The U.S. military plans to replace its aging fleet of Cold War-era U-2 sky drones with new Global Hawk planes, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Remington in an interview with the South Korean newspaper Dong-a Ilbo.
Remington recommended South Korea also purchase the Global Hawk models to improve its own reconnaissance efforts (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, June 3).