US increases sanctions against North Korea
Hillary Clinton says measures aim to punish North Korea for sinking South Korean ship and pursuing nuclear weapons
The US intensified sanctions against North Korea today in a move designed to punish Pyongyang for sinking a South Korean ship and pursuing nuclear weapons.
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, announced a tightening of measures aimed at throttling North Korea's atomic programme and choking off the supply of luxury goods to the country's elite.
The restrictions were expected to target individuals within the regime and banks that help fund the nuclear industry through illicit activities such as money laundering, counterfeiting and the trade in arms and luxury goods.
But it remained unclear how much influence the new measures would have. The US, UN and Japan have all imposed waves of sanctions against North Korea in the past. As a result, the country's economy is now believed to be in a wretched state, while the leadership shows few signs of acquiescence.
"These measures are not directed at the people of North Korea, who have suffered too long due to the misguided and malign priorities of their government," Clinton told reporters during a visit to Seoul. "They are directed at the destabilising, illicit, and provocative policies pursued by that government."
North Korea has been subject to international sanctions since it defied world opinion by conducting two nuclear tests and test-firing ballistic missiles in 2006. The regime is believed to be turning to illegal ventures, including the sale of weapons technology, to raise cash to fund its nuclear programme.
Efforts to negotiate a nuclear-free Korean peninsula collapsed last year and tensions surged when a North Korean torpedo sank the Cheonan, a South Korean vessel, in March, killing 46 sailors. Pyongyang has denied attacking the ship and said any retaliation could trigger an all-out war.
Clinton said she expected North Korea to "take certain steps that would acknowledge their responsibility" for the incident and end its nuclear programme.
"They know very well that they made commitments over the last year to the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula which they have reneged on and which we expect them to once again adhere to," she said.
"We are looking for irreversible denuclearisation."
The new sanctions were announced as Clinton visited the demilitarised zone (DMZ) that has separated the two Koreas for almost six decades. She urged North Korea to end the isolation and suffering of its people.
Clinton, accompanied by the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, arrived at the DMZ - the world's most heavily fortified border - to show solidarity with Washington's ally, South Korea, four months after the Cheonan sinking.
"Although it may be a thin line, these two places are worlds apart," Clinton said, as she stood near the demarcation line, drawn up after the Korean war ended in a truce in July 1953.
The war, in which as many as 3 million soldiers and civilians died, ended in a truce, maintained to this day by almost 2 million soldiers either side of the border.
As intrigued North Korean border guards looked on from just a few metres away, Clinton contrasted the countries' post-war fortunes.
While South Korea, a democracy since 1987, has prospered to become the world's 15th biggest economy, by contrast, "the north has not only stagnated in isolation, but the people of the north have suffered for so many years."
Clinton thanked troops from the US, South Korea and other UN nations who patrol the border, and pledged unwavering political and military support for South Korea, which hosts 28,500 US troops.
"We continue to send a message to the north: there is another way," she said. "There is a way that can benefit the north.
"But until they change direction, the United States stands firmly on behalf of the people and government of [South Korea], where we provide a stalwart defence along with our allies and partners."
Although senior US officials have toured the Korean peninsula's "no-man's land" before, today marked the first time the secretaries of state and defence have visited together.
Gates said South Korea's robust economy contrasted starkly with the desperate poverty of the north, whose economy has been wrecked by famine, international sanctions, the demise of its former ally the Soviet Union, and gross mismanagement.
"It is stunning how little has changed up there and yet how much South Korea continues to grow and prosper," Gates said. "The north, by contrast, stagnates in isolation and deprivation.
"And, as we saw with the sinking of the Cheonan, it continues its history of unpredictable and, at times, provocative behaviour."
Gates and Clinton later visited the Korean war memorial 30 miles away in Seoul where they laid wreaths in memory of the Cheonan dead. They also held security talks with their South Korean counterparts.
North Korea has so far escaped meaningful international censure for the torpedo attack. The UN security council issued a presidential statement condemning the sinking, but did not blame North Korea by name.
Seoul and Washington have warned, however, that they will not allow the incident to go unpunished, despite threats from the north that any punitive measures could trigger a conflict that would see its neighbour downed in a "sea of fire".
The US and South Korea have said they will hold four days of large-scale military exercises from Sunday in the Sea of Japan. The show of force is expected to anger North Korean leaders.
"The warmongers would be well advised to behave themselves, bearing deep in mind the consequences to be entailed by the above-said war moves," the north's government-run Minju Joson newspaper said in a commentary reported by the official Korean Central News Agency.
China, North Korea's only ally and biggest aid donor, condemned the exercises as "provocative".
Operation Invincible Spirit will involve about 8,000 US and South Korean troops, 200 aircraft and 18 ships including aircraft carrier the USS George Washington
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