NeutralCitizen
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Almost immediately after arriving here Sunday for a nuclear security summit, President Barack Obama was faced with the limits of his nonproliferation agenda in confronting the challenges posed by North Korea.
Mr. Obama, who got his first peek at the secretive nuclear power Sunday during a visit to the demilitarized zone dividing the Korean Peninsula, said he would use a Monday meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao to ask Beijing to toughen its approach with Pyongyang.
"In the same way that North Korea needs to do something new if it actually wants to do right by its people, my suggestion to China is that how they communicate their concerns to North Korea should probably reflect the fact that the approach that they've taken over the last several decades hasn't led to a fundamental shift in North Korea's behavior," Mr. Obama said in a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak.
Mr. Obama's three-day visit to South Korea comes as the country and others in the region are rattled by North Korea's plans to launch a satellite next month that the U.S. and its allies believe is intended as a test firing of a missile.
The U.S. has said a launch would likely unravel a recent agreement between Washington and North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong Eun, that includes the delivery of food aid to Pyongyang.
Mr. Obama warned Sunday that a launch could also result in tighter sanctions against North Korea.
"Every time North Korea has violated a Security Council resolution it's resulted in further isolation, tightening of sanctions," Mr. Obama said. "I suspect that will happen this time as well. They need to understand that bad behavior will not be rewarded."
The president held up China as an example of a once-insular nation that has made vast economic gains in recent years by opening up. China has expressed "worries" over North Korea's rocket launch but has also called for calm.
Meanwhile, North Korea pressed ahead with preparations for a launch by moving a rocket body from a rail depot to a building at its launchpad facility this weekend, a spokesman for South Korea's military said Sunday.
Earlier Sunday, Mr. Obama used his maiden visit to the demilitarized zone to pledge U.S. solidarity with South Korea and gazed across the heavily fortified border to the north.
The president, peering through binoculars, got a look at the mountainous North Korean landscape and a small village just across the border where a huge national flag was flying at half mast to mark the 100th day since the death of former leader Kim Jong Il.
"The contrast between South Korea and North Korea could not be clearer, could not be starker, both in terms of freedom but also in terms of prosperity," he told U.S. troops stationed along the border, which is dotted with mine fields and encased in barbed wire.
Mr. Obama credited the 28,500 U.S. troops serving on the Korean Peninsula with helping South Korea prosper. "You guys are at freedom's frontier," he said.
The demilitarized zone, a 160-mile long, 2.5-mile wide divide, is one of the last vestiges of the Cold War that has separated the North and South Korea for almost 60 years. Mr. Obama's visit there followed those of his predecessors Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Later, at the news conference with Mr. Lee, the president reflected on his visit, saying, "It's like you're in a time warp."
After visiting the demilitarized zone, Mr. Obama met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, saying afterward that the two leaders agreed to explore ways to provide "nonlethal" aid, including communications support and medical supplies, to the opposition in Syria.
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, said Messrs. Obama and Erdogan agreed that an April 1 "Friends of Syria" meeting in Turkey "can be a venue to discuss other types of nonlethal assistance within Syria, for instance, medical supplies, communications supplies, that could be useful to the opposition."
Syria is also set to be a topic of Mr. Obama's meeting with Mr. Hu, as is Iran. The president also plans to raise concerns about North Korea, Iran and Syria in a Monday meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
North Korea and Iran, while not officially on the nuclear security summit agenda this week, are already overshadowing the biennial gathering, which begins Monday night and serves as a forum for world leaders to discuss how contain the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
The two nations have emerged as vexing foreign-policy challenges for Mr. Obama as he pursues an ambitious nuclear-disarmament agenda and works to forge stronger ties in Asia.
The West's standoff with Iran over advances in its nuclear program has intensified in recent months, and Pyongyang's plans for a mid-April satellite launch have undercut the Obama administration's efforts in recent months to ease tensions with North Korea under the leadership of Kim Jong Eun.
The new North Korean government publicly committed last month to placing a freeze on its nuclear and long-range missile programs in exchange for food aid from Washington. But just days later, Pyongyang said it would launch a satellite in honor of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, arguing that this would be different from a missile test.
Prior to the food-aid agreement, Mr. Obama had resisted directly engaging Pyongyang due to its history of reneging on disarmament commitments. The launch announcement has been an embarrassment for Mr. Obama and unnerved U.S. allies in the region.
Mr. Obama said Sunday the situation in North Korea was still too "unsettled" for him to have developed an impression of Kim Jon Eun.
"It's not clear exactly who's calling the shots and what their long-term objectives are," Mr. Obama said. "But regardless of the North Korean leadership, what is clear they have not yet made that strategic pivot where they say to themselves, 'What we're doing isn't working. It's leading our country and our people down a dead end.'"
North Korea held ceremonies in Pyongyang on Sunday to mark the end of the official mourning period for Kim Jong Il. The nation's rubber-stamp parliament will meet on April 13, at which Kim Jong Eun is likely to be given further official titles to cement his leadership.
Mr. Obama, who got his first peek at the secretive nuclear power Sunday during a visit to the demilitarized zone dividing the Korean Peninsula, said he would use a Monday meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao to ask Beijing to toughen its approach with Pyongyang.
"In the same way that North Korea needs to do something new if it actually wants to do right by its people, my suggestion to China is that how they communicate their concerns to North Korea should probably reflect the fact that the approach that they've taken over the last several decades hasn't led to a fundamental shift in North Korea's behavior," Mr. Obama said in a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak.
Mr. Obama's three-day visit to South Korea comes as the country and others in the region are rattled by North Korea's plans to launch a satellite next month that the U.S. and its allies believe is intended as a test firing of a missile.
The U.S. has said a launch would likely unravel a recent agreement between Washington and North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong Eun, that includes the delivery of food aid to Pyongyang.
Mr. Obama warned Sunday that a launch could also result in tighter sanctions against North Korea.
"Every time North Korea has violated a Security Council resolution it's resulted in further isolation, tightening of sanctions," Mr. Obama said. "I suspect that will happen this time as well. They need to understand that bad behavior will not be rewarded."
The president held up China as an example of a once-insular nation that has made vast economic gains in recent years by opening up. China has expressed "worries" over North Korea's rocket launch but has also called for calm.
Meanwhile, North Korea pressed ahead with preparations for a launch by moving a rocket body from a rail depot to a building at its launchpad facility this weekend, a spokesman for South Korea's military said Sunday.
Earlier Sunday, Mr. Obama used his maiden visit to the demilitarized zone to pledge U.S. solidarity with South Korea and gazed across the heavily fortified border to the north.
The president, peering through binoculars, got a look at the mountainous North Korean landscape and a small village just across the border where a huge national flag was flying at half mast to mark the 100th day since the death of former leader Kim Jong Il.
"The contrast between South Korea and North Korea could not be clearer, could not be starker, both in terms of freedom but also in terms of prosperity," he told U.S. troops stationed along the border, which is dotted with mine fields and encased in barbed wire.
Mr. Obama credited the 28,500 U.S. troops serving on the Korean Peninsula with helping South Korea prosper. "You guys are at freedom's frontier," he said.
The demilitarized zone, a 160-mile long, 2.5-mile wide divide, is one of the last vestiges of the Cold War that has separated the North and South Korea for almost 60 years. Mr. Obama's visit there followed those of his predecessors Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Later, at the news conference with Mr. Lee, the president reflected on his visit, saying, "It's like you're in a time warp."
After visiting the demilitarized zone, Mr. Obama met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, saying afterward that the two leaders agreed to explore ways to provide "nonlethal" aid, including communications support and medical supplies, to the opposition in Syria.
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, said Messrs. Obama and Erdogan agreed that an April 1 "Friends of Syria" meeting in Turkey "can be a venue to discuss other types of nonlethal assistance within Syria, for instance, medical supplies, communications supplies, that could be useful to the opposition."
Syria is also set to be a topic of Mr. Obama's meeting with Mr. Hu, as is Iran. The president also plans to raise concerns about North Korea, Iran and Syria in a Monday meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
North Korea and Iran, while not officially on the nuclear security summit agenda this week, are already overshadowing the biennial gathering, which begins Monday night and serves as a forum for world leaders to discuss how contain the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
The two nations have emerged as vexing foreign-policy challenges for Mr. Obama as he pursues an ambitious nuclear-disarmament agenda and works to forge stronger ties in Asia.
The West's standoff with Iran over advances in its nuclear program has intensified in recent months, and Pyongyang's plans for a mid-April satellite launch have undercut the Obama administration's efforts in recent months to ease tensions with North Korea under the leadership of Kim Jong Eun.
The new North Korean government publicly committed last month to placing a freeze on its nuclear and long-range missile programs in exchange for food aid from Washington. But just days later, Pyongyang said it would launch a satellite in honor of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, arguing that this would be different from a missile test.
Prior to the food-aid agreement, Mr. Obama had resisted directly engaging Pyongyang due to its history of reneging on disarmament commitments. The launch announcement has been an embarrassment for Mr. Obama and unnerved U.S. allies in the region.
Mr. Obama said Sunday the situation in North Korea was still too "unsettled" for him to have developed an impression of Kim Jon Eun.
"It's not clear exactly who's calling the shots and what their long-term objectives are," Mr. Obama said. "But regardless of the North Korean leadership, what is clear they have not yet made that strategic pivot where they say to themselves, 'What we're doing isn't working. It's leading our country and our people down a dead end.'"
North Korea held ceremonies in Pyongyang on Sunday to mark the end of the official mourning period for Kim Jong Il. The nation's rubber-stamp parliament will meet on April 13, at which Kim Jong Eun is likely to be given further official titles to cement his leadership.
