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North Korea: Washington Pushes for Security Council Condemnation The United States has prepared a draft document that it hopes will push the U.N. Security Council to censure North Korea for developing nuclear weapons, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, June 19). John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, discussed the draft with Russian, British and French diplomats Wednesday. Negroponte met separately with Chinese diplomats yesterday, according to AP. China has opposed any Security Council action on North Korea, and it reiterated that stance Wednesday. In the draft, which would take the form of a statement from the council, Washington criticizes North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs “and the actions the regime has taken since last October when it acknowledged it was pursuing a uranium enrichment program.” “The council calls upon the D.P.R.K. to immediately and completely dismantle its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable and irreversible manner, and come into full compliance with its obligations” under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Although Negroponte refused to discuss the negotiations over the draft, he said “we will certainly continue to pursue” the effort (Associated Press/USA Today, June 20). The United States has informed Japan, South Korea and other partners about its effort to gain Security Council condemnation of North Korea’s actions. Traveling to a meeting of Asian and Pacific states this week, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said, “we will make judgments in the weeks ahead as to whether we want the U.N. to take any action” (Kyodo News Agency, June 19). North Korea, meanwhile, said again this week that it plans to develop a nuclear deterrent to a U.S. invasion. “The D.P.R.K. will put further spurs to increasing its nuclear deterrent force for self-defense as a just self-defense measure to cope with the U.S. strategy to isolate and stifle the D.P.R.K.,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Wednesday (Korean Central News Agency, June 18 in FBIS-EAS, June 18).
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