US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday — following a White House meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak — that a nuclear-armed North Korea posed a “grave threat” to the world.
He was speaking just a day after the US House of Representatives approved a resolution condemning “hostile behavior” by Pyongyang and called on Obama to “reassure our allies such as Japan and Taiwan that the US will do all it can to prevent and stop North Korea from becoming a nuclear power.”
Sponsoring the resolution, Republican Representative Peter King said: “We should have an open debate, put partisanship aside and stand together as Americans to confront what could be a mortal danger to our allies and also causing the situation in Asia to spiral out of control.”
“I certainly think when Japan sees what North Korea is doing, as far as advancing its nuclear program, we could well see Japan considering a nuclear program. We have strong friends, such as Taiwan, who now will be in danger,” he said.
Pentagon officials told a Senate committee on Tuesday that if North Korea continues to progress at its present rate it would, within three years, develop missiles that are capable of hitting the US.
Standing beside Lee in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday, Obama said: “We will pursue denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula vigorously. So we have not come to a conclusion that North Korea will or should be a nuclear power.
“Given their past behavior, given the belligerent manner in which they are constantly threatening their neighbors, I don’t think there’s any question that that would be a destabilizing situation that would be a profound threat not only to United States’ security but to world security,” he said.
“Under no circumstances are we going to allow North Korea to possess nuclear weapons,” Lee said.
The Washington Post reported Lee secured assurances from Obama that the US would extend its “nuclear umbrella” over South Korea in the face of attacks from the North.
Writing on May 31 in the Boston Globe, Martin Malin and Hui Zhang of Harvard University, said: “China is worried that the Korean nuclear and missile crisis will provide a pretext for accelerating the deployment of a joint US-Japanese missile defense shield, which undermines China’s own modest deterrent force.
“To facilitate enhanced Chinese support for North Korean denuclearization, Washington should address some of Beijing’s security concerns, including US-Japanese missile defense cooperation and sales of missile defense capabilities to Taiwan,” they wrote.
John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org in Washington, told the Taipei Times: “I certainly think that the North Korean nuclear situation could encourage Japan to develop its own nuclear weapons.”
“I am of the view that they have had a covert nuclear weapons program for quite some time. They could have deliverable nuclear weapons in less than a year,” he said. “Having said that, if it looks like the neighborhood is going nuclear I don’t think that Taiwan would want to be the odd man out. It would take Taiwan about five years to develop nuclear weapons.”
Meanwhile, North Korea warned yesterday of a “thousand-fold” military retaliation against the US and its allies if provoked. The warning came just hours after Obama and Lee’s press conference.
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