Showing unity against North Korean provocations, US President Barack Obama yesterday said it may be time to consider sanctions with “even more bite”’ against North Korea as its threatens its fourth nuclear test.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye said any test would trigger a regional nuclear arms race.
At a joint news conference with Park, Obama said North Korea will get “nothing except further isolation” if it proceeds with its threatened test. However, he also acknowledged there are limits to what effects additional penalties can have on the country.
Photo: EPA
“North Korea already is the most isolated country in the world, by far,” Obama said. “Its people suffer terribly because of the decisions its leaders have made. And we are not going to find a magic bullet that solves this problem overnight.”
Park struck a harsher tone, saying such a test would bring “fundamental change” to the region’s security landscape and trigger a nuclear arms race as countries hurry to match the North’s nuclear capabilities. She said such an outcome would make it fruitless to resume negotiations with the North aimed at getting it to abandon its nuclear weapons and its nuclear program.
Park said Seoul has assessed that the North is “fully ready now” to conduct another nuclear test.
“This is a very tense situation,” she said through a translator. “President Obama’s visit to South Korea sends a strong message to North Korea that its provocative acts cannot be tolerated.”
Obama said the missile technology and nuclear weapons that the North is developing pose a direct threat to South Korea and Japan, as well as to the US.
“We can’t waver in our intention. We have to make sure that, in strong concert with our allies, that we are continuing to press North Korea to change its approach,” Obama said.
Touching on another sensitive regional issue, Obama gave voice to South Korea’s grievances with Japan by calling Japan’s use of Korean “comfort women” during World War II a terrible and egregious violation of human rights.
“Those women were violated in ways that even in the midst of war was shocking,” the US leader said. “They deserve to be heard, they deserve to be respected.”
At the same time, he said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recognizes that the past must be acknowledged in full.
Obama also noted that he was visiting at a time of “great sorrow”’ and offered the US’ deepest condolences to his host over the recent ferry disaster. He said he was donating a magnolia tree from the White House lawn to the high school in honor of the lives that were lost and as a symbol of decades of friendship between the two nations.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS