Obama says food aid impossible if NK pushes launch
By Kang Hyun-kyung
The leaders of South Korea and the United States agreed Sunday to deal sternly with any North Korean threats and provocations, warning the North will face further isolation should it move forward with a rocket launch it announced earlier.
During a joint press conference held at Cheong Wa Dae after a summit, President Lee Myung-bak and President Barack Obama also said working-level talks were underway over the extension of the range of South Korean ballistic missiles and defense capabilities. Lee noted the missile range was not on the South Korea-U.S. summit agenda though.
The Lee-Obama talks took place amid escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula after Pyongyang announced a plan to launch a satellite in April to mark the 100th anniversary of its late founder Kim Il-sung’s birth.
The North is believed to have moved a long-range rocket to a launch site in Dongchang-ri in the country’s northwest in an apparent final preparations, according to military sources.
Lee and Obama echoed the view that the stalinist state will have to face the consequences if it goes ahead with the rocket launch.
“The real consequence of the launch should North Korea move forward is that they will have missed an opportunity,” said Obama during the news conference. He added that envisioned food assistance to the impoverished North will face further scrutiny.
“I will also note that every time North Korea has violated U.N. resolutions it resulted in further isolation, tightened sanctions..... I suspect that this will happen again (if they go ahead with the launch in April).”
“(North Korea) needs to understand that bad behavior will not be rewarded. There had been a pattern, I think, for decades in which North Korea thought if they had acted provocatively, then somehow they would be bribed into ceasing and desisting acting provocatively. ”
President Lee said the North Korean regime will hardly likely achieve its stated domestic and international goals with the launch.
Lee said if North Koreans witness that their government spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the launch they would be hard pressed to understand the motive, as it will come at the expense of their living standards.
In the past, he said, North Koreans might have felt proud of their government when it test-fired missiles. But that will no longer be the case, Lee said.
“Consequently, the North Korean regime will face an even more difficult situation should it push for the launch,” Lee said.