North Korean nuclear reactor
צילום: איי אף פי
US envoy: Iran, N. Korea nukes threaten security
State Department's nonproliferation adviser calls to increase pressure on regimes so they 'recognize it is in their best interest to forsake nuclear weapons'
New US sanctions against North Korea are designed to push the regime to abandon its "provocative activities" and give up its nuclear weapons, a senior envoy on nonproliferation said Monday.
Robert Einhorn, the State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, met with South Korean officials to discuss the new financial sanctions that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced in Seoul two weeks ago.
The new penalties target the sale and purchase of arms and related goods used to fund the communist regime's nuclear activities, and the acquisition of luxury items to reward its elite, Clinton said. The details of how and when the sanctions will be carried out have not been released.
"Our hope is that these measures will be effective, that they will provide strong incentives for North Korea's leaders to abide by their international obligations, not to pursue any provocative activities and to fulfill completely their commitments to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula," Einhorn told reporters outside South Korea's Foreign Ministry.
North Korea is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least half a dozen nuclear bombs and last year revealed it has a uranium enrichment program that would give the regime a second way to make atomic weapons.
Einhorn said the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran threaten global peace and security.
"One means of addressing these challenges is to increase the pressures felt by these two governments so that they recognize that it is in the best interests of their countries to meet their international obligations and forsake nuclear weapons," he said.
Five nations - China, Russia, South Korea, the US and Japan - have been trying for years to negotiate with North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for aid and other concessions. Pyongyang abandoned those talks last year.
Washington and Seoul also accuse the North of sinking a South Korean warship in March. Forty-six sailors died in an explosion that an international team of investigators pinned on a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine.
Pyongyang denies attacking the ship.
Einhorn was accompanied by Daniel Glaser, the Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, did not provide details about how or when the sanctions would be carried out. They head to Tokyo on Tuesday for talks with senior Japanese officials.
