US President Barack Obama, seeking to increase pressure on North Korea to abandon its atomic weapons, will visit the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on South Korea’s tense border on Sunday before a nuclear security summit in Seoul.
Obama’s visit to the border will be a strong show of support for South Korea, the White House said on Tuesday, sending a message to the North as Washington builds an international effort to get stalled nuclear disarmament talks back on track.
North Korea will not attend the summit, where Obama will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and urge him to use Beijing’s longstanding influence with Pyongyang, where leadership has recently passed to Kim Jong-un.
“We certainly hope and recommend that China bring all the instruments of power to bear to influence the decision-making in North Korea,” said Daniel Russel, White House National Security Council senior director for Asia.
Secretive North Korea has twice tested a nuclear device, and the US says its long-range ballistic missile program is progressing quickly.
While experts doubt North Korea has the ability to miniaturize an atomic bomb to place atop a warhead, last year Washington warned that the US mainland could come under threat from North Korean missiles within five years.
Last month, North Korea reached an agreement with Washington to suspend nuclear tests, long-range missile launches and uranium enrichment as part of a deal to restart food aid, but then announced it would launch a rocket carrying a satellite to mark the centenary of founder Kim Il-sung’s birth next month. The US, Japan and other countries claim it is also seeking to test the capabilities of its long-range missiles, in violation of international agreements.
The US has said this plan could violate the nuclear moratorium deal and scuttle the resumption of food aid.
INTERCEPTORS
Japanese media reports say Tokyo may deploy land and sea-based interceptor missiles ahead of North Korea’s planned rocket launch and has not ruled out shooting down the rocket if it violates Japanese airspace.
Japanese Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka yesterday said Tokyo was considering how to respond to any contingencies caused by the launch, including mobilizing destroyers and deploying mobile missile launchers to areas near the rocket’s planned trajectory.
The Unha-3 rocket is expected to fly over western Japan — including parts of Okinawa — after it is launched from a pad on North Korea’s west coast between April 14 and April 16. That has raised concerns that a failed launch, or a falling stage of the rocket, could endanger Japanese lives or property.
Tanaka said the details of the deployments are now being worked out and refused to comment further.
However, defense officials and media reports suggest Japan is likely to send three Aegis-equipped destroyers to the Pacific and East China Sea and deploy mobile missile launchers to islands in Okinawa that are near the rocket’s trajectory.
“We are considering mobilizing PAC-3 missiles to Okinawa Island, or to Ishigaki or Sakishima islands, to defend our country against any contingencies,” Japanese Vice Defense Minister Shu Watanabe said on Tuesday.
Earlier this week, Tanaka said Tokyo has not ruled out the possibility of shooting down the rocket if it is deemed a threat and violates Japanese airspace. Japan mobilized its interceptor units and issued a similar warning to North Korea before a rocket launch in 2009, but did not follow through.
Obama’s visit to the DMZ, which splits the peninsular that was divided by the 1950-1953 Korean war, was cast by the White House as a chance for him to thank some of the more that 20,000 US troops still stationed in South Korea.
Beijing is the closest thing North Korea has to an ally, but has also voiced concern about the planned rocket launch, which has raised tensions ahead of the two-day summit starting on Monday.
SUMMIT
Obama will also meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on the sidelines of the summit to discuss what can be done to discourage the missile launch and Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
Obama will also discuss with Hu and Medvedev the latest world power efforts to tackle Iran over its nuclear program, which the West says is aimed at building an atomic bomb, but which Tehran insists is for peaceful power generation.
“We are committed to pursing a diplomatic path that allows the Iranians to make the right decision,” White House National Security Council spokesman Ben Rhodes said.
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