By DPA,
Washington : US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that North Korea will face consequences for detonating a nuclear device and for the “belligerent” threats issued against neighbouring countries.
Pyongyang warned Wednesday that it will attack any US or South Korean naval vessels who intercept North Korean ships, one day after Seoul joined a US-led initiative to halt illicit shipments of weapons of mass destruction related technology.
North Korea carried out its second detonation of a nuclear bomb Monday in violation of UN Security Council resolutions and a disarmament agreement produced by years of six-nation negotiations.
North Korea “has ignored the international community. It has abrogated the obligations it entered into through the six-party talks. And it continues to act in a provocative and belligerent manner toward its neighbours”, Clinton said. “There are consequences to such actions.”
The international community and UN Security Council swiftly condemned the nuclear blast and subsequent missile tests and the council has begun discussions on enacting sanctions against Pyongyang.
During a press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit, Clinton said the goal remains to “rein in” North Korea and bring the isolated country back into the six-nation talks designed to keep the peninsula free of nuclear weapons.
South Korea reversed policy after North Korea’s nuclear test by joining the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a group of dozens of countries seeking to prevent the transport of dangerous weapons.
The Stalinist state said on Wednesday said it was not bound by the armistice that ended the 1950-1953 Korean war and called South Korean President Lee Myung Bak a “traitor” for joining the PSI initiative.
“As declared to the world, our revolutionary forces will consider the full participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) by the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors as a declaration of war against us,” the statement said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters that North Korean won’t gain the international attention it seeks through “through sabre-rattling and bluster and threats”.
“Threats won’t get North Korea the attention it craves,” he said. “Their actions are continuing to further deepen their own isolation from the international community and from their rights and
obligations that they themselves have agreed to live up to.”