Japan embargo for North Korea

While Japan has banned all exports to North Korea, the US has also vow to defend South Korea
Hardnews Bureau

Japan banned all exports to North Korea, following the recent nuclear test and missile launches. Prime Minister Taro Aso's cabinet decided on Tuesday to prohibit all trade to the country from June 18 until April 2010. It has also decided to ban the entry of foreigners who have violated laws restricting trade or money transactions to North Korea.

"The most important thing is how faithfully North Korea responds to Japan's measures and its strong message," Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters in Tokyo. The sanctions can be removed if North Korea takes steps to halt its nuclear weapons programme and addresses its abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, he said.

The US, too, is persistent in its effort to mount pressure on North Korea. In a move aimed at further isolating Pyongyang, US President Barack Obama and his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak met in Washington on Tuesday. Talking to reporters after the summit, Obama repeated his vow to defend South Korea by keeping it under its "nuclear umbrella", a step which could lead to more defiance in North Korea.

At a news conference on Tuesday, President Obama said, "Given the belligerent manner in which they are constantly threatening their neighbours, I don't think there's any question that that would be a destabilising situation that would be a profound threat to not only the United States' security, but also to world security," Obama said at a news conference.

Obama pledged to end a cycle of allowing North Korea to create a nuclear crisis, then get concessions in the form of food, fuel and other incentives in return for backing down, only to later see Pyongyang renege on its promises.

"This is a pattern they've come to expect," said Obama. "We are going to break that pattern."

North Korea remained defiant though. Addressing a huge rally at Kim Il Sung Square on Monday, Kim Ki Nam, secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, said that the UN Security Council finally adopted an anti-DPRK "resolution on sanctions" at the instigation of the US over the DPRK's second nuclear test, another grave provocation.

"This is, in essence, a wicked pressure offensive launched by the US imperialists to disarm the DPRK, strangle its economy and undermine its ideology and system", he said as reported by Korean Central News Agency of DPRK.

"The UNSC's "resolution on sanctions" is an intolerable mockery of the dignity of the Korean people and an arrogant criminal act of wantonly violating its sovereignty," Kim Ki Nam further added.

Earlier, North Korea had warned that it was free to take action in self defence and made it clear that any action aimed at crippling imports and exports to this hermit kingdom would be termed as acts of war.

"We might see some dangerous fireworks if the West doesn't manage to bring Kim Jong-il to the negotiating table," an international affairs expert told Hardnews.