UN imposes sanctions on North Korea

United States Ambassador John Bolton

The United Nations Security Council has voted unanimously to impose financial and weapons sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear test.

The resolution calls North Korea's nuclear test a "clear threat to international peace and security".

The United States-drafted resolution allows nations to stop cargo going to and from North Korea to check for weapons of mass destruction or related supplies.

It was adopted after the United States, Britain and France made some modifications to deal with last-minute objections from Russia and China.

US ambassador John Bolton has told the Security Council's 15 members the resolution sends a strong message.

"Today we are sending a strong and clear message to North Korea and other would-be proliferators that there will be serious repercussions in continuing to pursue weapons of mass destruction," he said.

The resolution requires all countries to prevent the sale or transfer of materials related to North Korea's unconventional weapons programs.

And it demands nations freeze funds overseas of people or businesses connected with North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

In a concession to China, the resolution specifically excludes the use of force, but allows economic sanctions and a restriction on naval and air transport.

But by allowing cargo inspection, the document still puts an international imprimatur on the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative.

This was launched in May 2003 and encourages countries to interdict weapons from North Korea, Iran and other states of concern.

N Korean response

North Korea's UN ambassador says his country "totally" rejects the Security Council's resolution, and has accused the world body of "double standards".

Ambassador Pak Gil Yon says any further US pressure on Pyongyang will be a "declaration of war".

"If the United States increases pressure on the Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea, the DPRK will continue to take physical countermeasures, considering it as a declaration of war," Mr Pak told the Security Council.

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea expresses its disappointment that the Security Council finds itself incapable of saying even a word of concern to the United States."

Mr Pak says the United States "threatens the DPRK with nuclear pre-emptive attack and aggravates tensions by reinforcing armed forces and conducting larger scale joint military exercises nearby the Korean Peninsula".

Japan's UN ambassador, Kenzo Oshima, told reporters he was surprised by North Korea's reaction, but that it was not "totally unexpected."

Meanwhile, China's UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, told the council Beijing still opposes interdiction and has urged nations not to take "provocative steps".

The resolution also drops a ban on all arms going to North Korea, but it puts an embargo on all large-sized conventional arms.

The vote came after US officials said intelligence analysis showed radioactivity in air samples collected near the suspected nuclear test site.

"That's right, though this is only a first look. People have been saying all along that the working assumption is it was a nuke," an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

ith China fearing a flood of refugees from a sudden collapse of North Korea - which was sorely tested yet survived the demise of the Soviet Union, the death of its founder and a famine that may have killed 10 per cent of its people in the 1990s - some have questioned what impact any sanctions will have.

"North Korea is already very familiar with poverty," former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung told Reuters in Seoul on Saturday.

"The country can also get support, at least in order to survive, from countries such as China."

Mr Kim, the architect of South Korea's engagement policy with the North, blamed US policy in part for the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula, which he said could only end if the US Government held direct talks with North Korean leaders.

"The United States must talk to North Korea," he said in an email interview.

"We have to talk not only with friends but also with enemies, if necessary."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit China, Japan and South Korea from October 17 to 22.

A US official has said Dr Rice will also be likely to travel to Russia during the trip.

Those five countries had been engaging North Korea in the "six-party talks" aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees.

- REUTERS