U.S. President Barack Obama |
Calling North Korea’s plan of launching a rocket a “provocative” act, U.S. President Barack Obama issued a last-minute call on Pyongyang to scrap the move, adding a warning that the U.S. would bring the matter to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
"We have made it very clear to the North Koreans that their missile launch is provocative, it puts enormous strains on the six-party talks, and that they should stop the launch," Obama said in a press conference, Yonhap reported Saturday.
"It is not just us that has said that North Korea should not launch," he said. "Japan, Korea, Russia, China, the other members of the six-party talks have all indicated that this launch should not go forward."
Obama met with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in London Thursday on the sidelines of the G20 economic summit. Both agreed that they will refer any rocket launch by North Korea to the U.N. Security Council for possible punitive action, but Chinese President Hu Jintao stopped short of agreeing to that while meeting with the two leaders, respectively, in the British capital.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korea, urged North Korea to return to the six-party talks regardless of its proposed rocket launch, saying the U.S. holds a long-term goal of the North's denuclearization.
North Korea has threatened to abandon the six-party talks if the U.S. and its allies bring the rocket launch to the U.N. Security Council for punitive action. The talks have been stalled over how to verify North Korea's nuclear activities.
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