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China, Russia slow North Korea sanctions drive
By Gerard Aziakou
AFP
UNITED NATIONS
Petroleumworld.com 07 07 06
China and Russia dug in their heels over imposing UN sanctions on North Korea over its missile tests Thursday, as President George W. Bush appealed to fellow leaders for united action.
The United States and Japan led efforts to condemn and punish Pyongyang in the UN Security Council -- hours after unrepentent North Korea vowed to fire off more tests, despite global outrage over Wednesday's seven launches.
Experts from the 15-member Security Council met for two hours, but could not break a deadlock over a Japanese draft resolution promising financial sanctions against North Korea.
Veto-wielding China and Russia, seen as two of the few sources of influence over the reclusive state, remained set on a resolution rebuking North Korea, but stripped of punitive measures, diplomats said.
"Our position remains unchanged," Chinese UN delegate Li Junhua told AFP after the two-hour meeting. "We need some flexible signals from our Japanese colleagues."
US ambassador John Bolton insisted that the council would eventually pass a binding resolution condemning the missile launches.
"The support remains really overwhelming to make a very strong statement of condemnation of the North Korean missile launches and to take strong effective measures in response," Bolton said.
The North earlier warned specifically against action by the Security Council.
"If sanctions are imposed, all-out countermeasures will be taken," North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Han Song-Ryol, said in an interview with Japan's Tokyo Broadcasting System.
The text would urge UN member states to prevent the transfer of financial resources, items, goods and technology that could contribute to Pyongyang's missile program and other weapons of mass destruction programs.
Bush meanwhile pursued personal telephone diplomacy, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's President Hu Jintao, following calls to South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi late Wednesday.
He said he was "pleased" with the response to his telephone calls, despite the apparent deadlock at the UN.
"The best way to solve the problem diplomatically is for all of us to be working in concert and to send one message," Bush said.
"And that is -- to (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Il -- ... 'we expect you to adhere to international norms, and we expect you to keep your word.'"
The White House admitted, however, there was as yet no joint position on how to respond to the seven missile tests, including a launching of the Taepodong-2 rocket which could theoretically hit US soil.
Bush cautioned that there would not be immediate results from his intervention or the intense UN haggling.
"Diplomacy takes a while ...these problems won't be solved overnight."
Bush's spokesman Tony Snow, also warned against expecting a "snap resolution" saying diplomacy was not like a TV sitcom, guaranteeing a "neat, happy" ending within 30 minutes. He acknowledged differences remained between top powers.
"There are going to be a whole series of conversations. When that is all put together, and when there's a unified front, then you're going to hear from them, but right now it's inappropriate."
Hu told Bush that China -- the North's neighbor and main ally -- was "seriously concerned" about the situation but favored "calm and restraint," the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement.
"China was committed to maintaining peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and was opposed to any actions that might intensify the situation," Hu told Bush, a day before senior US envoy Christopher Hill was due in Beijing.
Putin, who also spoke to Bush said Russia was "worried about the situation, and said during an Internet question-and-answer session broadcast on Russian television that "an atmosphere needs to be created for reaching a compromise."
Snow said that the issue of sanctions on North Korea was not addressed in either conversation.
North Korea's foreign ministry, earlier said Pyongyang "will go on with missile-launch exercises as part of its efforts to bolster deterrent for self-defence in the future."
The isolated state, which last year declared it had nuclear weapons, warned it "will have no option but to take stronger physical actions of other forms, should any other country dare take issue with the exercises and put pressure upon it."
It said it had security concerns in light of Bush's 2002 grouping of North Korea with Iraq and Iran as an "axis of evil". Saddam Hussein's Iraq was invaded a year later.
In Washington, senior State Department official Nicholas Burns warned on CBS television that the United States would not "overreact ... to these wild statements out of Pyongyang and North Korea."
Burns also stepped up pressure on China: "they've got a lot of influence ... so we're hoping that the Chinese will choose to use that influence."
South Korean intelligence officials were quoted saying that the North was likely to carry out a second Taepodong-2 test after fixing technical problems that doomed the first one to crash into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
AFP 06 2331 GMT 07 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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