Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




NUKEWARS
Obama: US-S.Korean alliance 'stronger than ever'
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Dec 4, 2010


US accuses China of 'enabling' N. Korea: report
Washington (AFP) Dec 5, 2010 - In an apparent change of its approach to China, the administration of President Barack Obama has privately started accusing Beijing of "enabling" North Korea to start a uranium enrichment program and to launch attacks on South Korea, The Washington Post reported late Sunday. Citing an unnamed senior US official, the newspaper said that Washington is moving to redefine its relationship with South Korea and Japan, potentially creating an anti-China bloc in Northeast Asia. The report came as South Korea's military began a major live-fire exercise amid high tensions following North Korea's deadly bombardment of a border island last month. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the firing exercises by warships or land artillery units had started in 29 locations, including off one of five frontline islands near the disputed Yellow Sea border with the North. The North on November 23 killed two civilians and two marines and destroyed 29 homes in an artillery attack on Yeonpyeong island, sending regional tensions soaring.

It said it was retaliating for a South Korean artillery drill which had lobbed some shells into waters it claims as its territory. In recent meetings with their Chinese counterparts in Beijing and in Washington, US officials said that China was turning a blind eye to North Korean violations of UN Security Council resolutions, international agreements and a 1953 armistice halting the Korean War that China helped to negotiate, the report noted. "The Chinese embrace of North Korea in the last eight months has served to convince North Korea that China has its back and has encouraged it to behave with impunity," the paper quoted a senior administration official as saying. "We think the Chinese have been enabling North Korea." The US exasperation with China over the Korean peninsula has been evident since June, when President Obama accused China of "willful blindness" in remaining silent over North Korea's suspected sinking of a South Korean warship in March, The Post noted. But the administration's position now that China is in effect partially to blame for the problems is new, the report said.

The US-South Korean alliance is "stronger than ever," President Barack Obama said Saturday in the wake a deadly North Korean assault on its southern neighbor.

"At a time in which there are increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula following the North's unprovoked attack on the South Korean people, today we are showing that the defense alliance and partnership of the United States and South Korea is stronger than ever," Obama said.

His remarks were part of a statement welcoming a landmark US-South Korea free trade agreement reached after three years of deadlock.

Incoming South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-Jin said earlier that Seoul would "swiftly and strongly respond with force" until North Korea surrenders if the communist state launches another assault.

In his inauguration speech after President Lee Myung-Bak officially appointed the retired four-star general as the new defence chief, Kim said the sinking of a South Korean warship in the Yellow Sea in March and the shelling on Yeonpyeong island left "indelible wounds" on the South's pride and honor.

Earlier this week, South Korea's military announced just days after it wrapped Yellow Sea maneuvers with the US navy that it was planning more joint naval drills with the United States this month.

earlier related report
Three-nation talks to take up N.Korea nuclear issue
Tokyo (AFP) Dec 3, 2010 - The United States, Japan and South Korea will discuss North Korea's uranium enrichment and other developments related to its nuclear ambitions in Washington next week, Japan's top diplomat said Friday.

Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said he plans to discuss with his US and South Korean counterparts "what kind of factors should be incorporated" into the premise of holding multilateral talks proposed by China.

Maehara will meet with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and South Korea's Kim Sung-hwan some two weeks after Pyongyang killed four South Koreans in its first shelling of a civilian area in decades.

Following North Korea's deadly artillery attack and its recent boasting about a new uranium reprocessing plant, China, under pressure to bring its ally to heel, proposed multilateral talks in Beijing in early December.

But Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have snubbed Beijing's proposal for six-way crisis talks that would also include Moscow and Pyongyang -- instead scheduling their own three-way foreign ministers' talks in Washington next Monday.

"The issue of uranium enrichment had not been discussed in the six-party talks, but that of course should be discussed at the forum," Maehara told reporters. "The uranium enrichment issue should never be let go."

"This I think will be easily agreed between Japan, the United States and South Korea," he said.

He also hopes to discuss in Washington his idea that North Korea should accept inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after it showed off a a new uranium reprocessing plant to a US scientist, he said.

"I hope we will respond to China with a counter-proposal" after the meeting in Washington, Maehara said.

"We didn't simply reject the Chinese proposal (of holding a six-party meeting). We say just meeting, without prospects of any progress, is unacceptable," Maehara said.

In November a US scientist revealed he had been shown a new uranium enrichment plant equipped with at least 1,000 centrifuges at the North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex outside the capital Pyongyang.

North Korea abandoned six-party talks on ending its nuclear drive in April 2009 after launching a long-range rocket -- a move that earned UN condemnation and a new round of punitive sanctions.

.


Related Links
Learn about nuclear weapons doctrine and defense at SpaceWar.com
Learn about missile defense at SpaceWar.com
All about missiles at SpaceWar.com
Learn about the Superpowers of the 21st Century at SpaceWar.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








NUKEWARS
Report: N.Korea deploys more multiple rocket-launchers
Seoul (AFP) Dec 3, 2010
North Korea has deployed more multiple rocket-launchers capable of hitting Seoul amid high tensions over its deadly artillery attack on a South Korean border island, a report said Friday. "North Korea has recently increased the number of its multiple-launch rockets by 100 pieces to some 5,200," Yonhap news agency quoted a military source as saying. "They can mount a concentrated attack f ... read more


NUKEWARS
Robotic Excavations Could Help Get Helium 3 From Moon To Earth

A Softer Landing on the Moon

Neptec Wins Canadian Space Agency Contract To Develop A New Generation Of Lunar Rovers

Mission to far side of moon proposed

NUKEWARS
Drilling For The Future Of Science

Opportunity Imaging Small Craters On Way To Endeavour

Opportunity Making Progress To Endeavour Crater

Spain Supplies Weather Station For Next Mars Rover

NUKEWARS
SwRI Researchers Continue Starfighters Suborbital Space Flight Training

X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle Completes First Flight

Website Hosts Space Transcripts

Roscosmos And NASA To Seal Deal On Joint Projects

NUKEWARS
China Builds Theme Park In Spaceport

Tiangong Space Station Plans Progessing

China-Made Satellite Keeps Remote Areas In Venezuela Connected

Optis Software To Optimize Chinese Satellite Design

NUKEWARS
NASA Seeks Nonprofit To Manage ISS National Lab Research

Expedition 25 Returns Home

Crews approved for space station mission

Soyuz crew land safely on earth from ISS

NUKEWARS
ISRO Hands Two Contracts To Arianespace

US company readies first space capsule launch

Kazakh Space Agency Seeks Extra Funding For New Baikonur Launch Pad

Aerojet Propulsion Raises Japan's First Quasi-Zenith Satellite MICHIBIKI

NUKEWARS
Super-Earth Has An Atmosphere, But Is It Steamy Or Gassy

First Super-Earth Atmosphere Analyzed

Super Earth Could Be Steaming Hot Or Full Of Gas

500th 'extrasolar' planet discovered

NUKEWARS
Video games get kids to eat more veg, fruit: study

Cell phone exposure linked to bad behavior in kids: study

Next-Gen Earth Imaging Satellite Advances To Critical Design Review Phase

Google unveils new smartphone, the Nexus S




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement