,
Reality Check from DefenceTalk: Sanctions do not work: From a strategic point of view, sanctions on top of sanctions is a failed and out of touch policy.
US President George W. Bush vowed that North Korea would face “serious repercussions” over its claim to have tested a nuclear bomb for the first time.
But Bush also committed his government to seeking a diplomatic rather than military solution to the standoff, while at the same time boosting defense cooperation with Asian allies on the front line against the erratic communist regime.
The crisis sparked by North Korea's purported test of a nuclear device on Monday dominated a 70-minute press conference Bush held in the White House Rose Garden.
Bush said it had yet to be confirmed that Monday's blast was in fact a nuclear detonation.
“But this claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and stability,” he said.
“We are working with partners in the region and in the United Nations Security Council to ensure there are serious repercussions for the regime in Pyongyang” as a result of the test, Bush said.
Bush said he had spoken with the leaders of the four other governments leading efforts to halt North Korea's nuclear effort — Japan, China, South Korea and Russia, and had found unanimous agreement on the need for “a strong Security Council resolution that will require North Korea to abide by its international commitments to dismantle its nuclear programs.”
He said the resolution, being debated Wednesday at UN headquarters in New York, “should specify a series of measures to prevent North Korea from exporting nuclear or missile technologies.”
Washington also wants sanctions that would prevent “financial transactions or asset transfers that would help North Korea develop its nuclear missile capabilities,” he said.
Acknowledging that his administration had often been criticized in the past for taking a “go it alone” approach to foreign policy, Bush said he was today fully committed to working diplomatically through the United Nations.
And he reaffirmed his administration's refusal to hold direct bilateral talks with either North Korea or Iran.
“I firmly believe that with North Korea and with Iran that it is best to deal with these regimes with more than one voice,” he said.
A defiant North Korea warned earlier Wednesday that it would regard harsh UN sanctions as a “declaration of war” and threatened further nuclear tests if the United States kept up its pressure for stiff punitive measures.
North Korea has asserted it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself from aggression by the United States, a possibility Pyongyang has repeatedly raised since the 2003 US-led invasion to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
But Bush insisted in his press conference that Iraq was an entirely different situation and that his government had no plans for military action against either North Korea or Iran.
“I believe the commander-in-chief must try all diplomatic efforts before we commit our military,” Bush said.
“Diplomacy hasn't run its course, and we'll continue working to give diplomacy a full opportunity to succeed,” he said.
But the US president also said that in response to North Korea's “provocation, we will increase defense cooperation with our allies, including cooperation with ballistic missile defense to protect against North Korean aggression.”
And he refused to rule out eventual military action if North Korea persists with its nuclear threat.
“I obviously look at all the options, all the time,” he said.
The Bush administration held negotiations with North Korea as part of the so-called six-party talks which reached an agreement in Beijing in September 2005 under which North Korea would abandon its nuclear programme in exchange for energy and security guarantees.
But the North began boycotting the talks just two months later after the United States imposed its own sanctions on a Macau bank it said was laundering money for the Pyongyang regime.
At Wednesday's press conference, Bush also acknowledged that Iraq still faced “tough times” three-and-a-half years after the ouster of Saddam, but he vowed the United States would stay the course and help the fledgling democracy face terrorist threats and sectarian fighting.
“The enemy's doing everything within its power to destroy the government and to drive us out of the Middle East, starting with driving us out of Iraq before the mission is done,” he said.
“By helping the Iraqis build a democracy, an Iraqi-style democracy, we will deal a major blow to terrorists and extremists,” he said.
