THE United States’s next spy chief has warned of the danger of future military attack by North Korea.
The warning came as Washington the United States announced new sanctions against the nuclear-armed dictatorship.
The sanctions were set out by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, during a visit to Seoul intended to underline US military support after the sinking of a South Korea naval ship, blamed by both governments on a North Korean torpedo attack.
Ms Clinton’s announcement will be followed next week by joint US-South Korean naval exercises that have been denounced as provocative by North Korea and its closest supporter, China.
Ms Clinton said the sanctions, which include further restrictions on banking transactions, the sale of arms and luxury goods, and a travel ban on blacklisted individuals, were aimed not at ordinary North Koreans, but at the Government of their leader Kim Jong Il.
“They are directed at the destabilising, illicit, and provocative policies pursued by that government,” she said. “From the beginning of the Obama administration, we have made clear that there is a path open to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to achieve the security and international respect it seeks. North Korea can cease its provocative behaviour, halt its threats and belligerence towards its neighbours, take irreversible steps to fulfil its denuclearisation commitments and comply with international law.”
In Washington, the man nominated to head US intelligence-gathering operations warned that North Korea could launch further attacks.
In a submission to a hearing to confirm his nomination, former general James Clapper wrote: “We may be entering a dangerous new period when North Korea will once again attempt to advance its internal and external political goals through direct attacks on our allies in the Republic of Korea.”
In an unprecedented joint visit, Ms Clinton travelled to the North Korean border with Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, and their South Korean counterparts.
They met US soldiers at the truce village of Panmunjom, where a few metres of open space separate US and South Korean soldiers from their North Korean enemies.
The US visitors entered one of the tin huts which serve as a meeting place for negotiators from the two sides, and which straddle the border. Like thousands of day-trippers every year, they briefly stepped over to the far side of the negotiating table, thus technically entering North Korean territory.
“It struck me that although there may be a thin line, these two places are worlds apart,” said Ms Clinton, whose husband Bill described Panmunjom as the “scariest place on Earth” during a 1993 visit as President.
“It’s stunning how little has changed up there and yet how much South Korea continues to grow and prosper,” said Mr Gates. “The North, by contrast, stagnates in isolation and deprivation. As we saw with the sinking of the Cheonan, it continues its history of unpredictable and at times provocative behaviour.”
The sinking of the Cheonan in the Yellow Sea in March with the loss of 46 lives, brought international condemnation. But North Korea denies responsibility and China used its veto at the UN Security Council to ensure that statement on the matter did not name Pyongyang as the perpetrator.
Frustrated by the failure of diplomacy, the US and South Korea will also make a show of force with a series of ten military exercises which will begin on Sunday with large-scale naval drills.
China has called them as a return to the confrontational spirit of the Cold War. Some of the exercises will be in the Yellow Sea, close to where the Cheonan was sunk, and Chinese fishing grounds. Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central News Agency denounced the exercises as a preparation for war.
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