Lee says North Korea must give up nukes

WASHINGTON — South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Wednesday that his nation and its allies will not be intimidated by nuclear threats from neighboring North Korea.

Lee and President Barack Obama have used the South Korean leader’s three-day visit to Washington to display a unified front in the face of North Korea’s threats of nuclear war and its vow to expand its nuclear programs. Tensions in Northeast Asia have risen sharply since the United Nations slapped the North with sanctions as punishment for its nuclear test last month.

The North responded to Lee’s visit with a statement vowing “a one hundred- or one thousand-fold retaliation with merciless military strikes” for infringements on its sovereignty.

Lee told an audience at George Washington University, where he received an honorary degree, that South Korea would not allow nuclear weapons in North Korea under any circumstances. “North Korea continues to engage in belligerent activities, … threatening peace and stability in Northeast Asia and beyond,” Lee said.

But Lee also held out the possibility that a nuclear-free North Korea could gain peace and prosperity and normal relations with the outside world.

“North Korea must understand that it is in their best interests to fully give up their nuclear weapons ambitions,” Lee said through an interpreter. “When North Korea takes meaningful steps toward peace and dialogue, Korea, as well as the rest of the international community, stands ready to extend a helping hand.”

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Wednesday that the United States is now aggressively implementing U.N. sanctions. He urged the North to return to nuclear disarmament negotiations.

Asked about the possibility that the North was preparing for more missile tests, Crowley said, “I don’t think anyone in the United States government has a crystal ball on why North Korea does what it does. Its behavior is provocative. It represents a threat to the region. We have grave concerns about the behavior of North Korea.”

Crowley suggested that more North Korean entities could be added to a U.N. sanctions list.

At their White House meeting on Tuesday, Lee and Obama said they were united in their efforts to stop the North from using nuclear brinkmanship to squeeze concessions from a frightened world.

North Korea already has tested two underground nuclear devices and is believed by U.S. intelligence to possess enough material to make several nuclear bombs.

North Korea is furious over U.N. sanctions that toughen an arms embargo and authorize ship searches in an attempt to thwart the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The United Nations, however, did not authorize military force to compel the measures.

Obama said the leaders agreed that the new U.N. resolution must be fully enforced, something the North has said it would consider an act of war.

The North has responded to the U.N. sanctions by promising to weaponize all its plutonium and step up its nuclear bomb-making by enriching uranium. Both plutonium and uranium can be used to make atomic bombs. U.S. officials have said the North Koreans also appear to be making preparations for a third nuclear test.

On Wednesday, the government-run Minju Joson newspaper published a commentary saying, “If the U.S. and its followers infringe upon our republic’s sovereignty even a bit, our military and people will launch a one hundred- or one thousand-fold retaliation with merciless military strikes.”

Lee also pressed during his visit for quick ratification of a stalled U.S.-South Korean free trade agreement.

At a Tuesday dinner sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Lee urged representatives of top American companies to push for approval of a deal that he said would dramatically boost trade and strengthen the countries’ alliance.

Obama, however, suggested that work still had to be done on the deal, which was signed in 2007 after painstaking negotiations but has since faced complications over disputes over autos and U.S. beef imports to Korea.

The agreement has been promoted as a potential $10 billion boon to the U.S. economy. Failure, supporters say, would threaten U.S. standing in an important region.