Each pledged a different, more vigorous approach than that followed by the Obama administration. He called for North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un to freeze Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs immediately and return to denuclearization talks.
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South Africa shares the concerns of the worldwide community regarding the nuclear weapon- and delivery system-related activities of the DPRK, the country’s Department of global Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) said in a statement. “That is absolutely the bottom line”.
North Korea, in short, is making much faster progress than many had hoped.
Yet, those controversial talks at least had as their agreed goal the demise of the Iranian nuclear-weapons program.
Following North Korea’s nuclear test in January, China had agreed to impose tougher United Nations sanctions, which included a crackdown on mineral exports, increased cargo inspections and financial limitations.
According to NK News, a specialist website focused on North Korea, “this is the first time the North has explicitly used United States and South Korea-related satire in its comedy”.
Such sanctions might slow North Korea’s nuclear development, but it is unlikely to end or reverse it. That’s a high-risk strategy with little chance of success. The Obama administration laid a foundation for this with the strong sanctions recently achieved by the U.N. Security Council with the support of China and Russian Federation.
The North has also been angered by a US and South Korean plan to install an anti-missile defence system in the South and by the allies’ massive annual joint military exercises, which are still taking place. “So, it was very meaningful that we reconfirmed cooperation”. The test demonstrated a “nuclear warhead that has been standardised to be able to be mounted on our ballistic missiles”, the North Korean regime proclaimed in a statement. “I think that you couldn’t necessarily rule that possibility out”, says Snyder.
South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense has said it believes the North has the ability to conduct another nuclear test in an unused tunnel at its main testing complex.
Pressed by a reporter on what leverage the USA has against China, she said, “we have a lot of leverage”, and pointed to an enhanced missile defense system and USA military deployments in Asia-both of which “China has no interest in”.
They also want to limit the number of North Koreans allowed to work overseas. The U.S. shooting stuff out of the air and the possibility of South Korea and Japan going nuclear could change its calculation. Irrespective of the actual destructive power and future potential of Pyongyang’s nuclear program, the fact remains that North Korea is the only country that has withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and conducted nuclear tests in the 21st century. Yet it is hard to imagine what more China would sign up to.
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Mike Mullen, a retired U.S. Navy admiral and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Sam Nunn, a former Democratic senator from Georgia, are co-chairs of the Independent Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward North Korea, which was sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. It has proven adept at skirting them, thanks largely to China, its ally and biggest trading partner, which has enforced them only laxly.
