Key U.N. Powers Agree on N. Korea Statement

[steven johnson]

Source: Washington Post

Sunday, April 12, 2009; Page A12
NEW YORK, April 11 -- The U.N. Security Council's five permanent powers and Japan reached agreement Saturday on a statement condemning North Korea's April 5 rocket launch over Japan. The text would revive a 2 1/2 -year-old threat of financial and travel sanctions against individuals and entities linked to Pyongyang's missile program.
The pact set the stage for a likely agreement as early as Monday by the 15-nation council on a statement that would also demand that North Korea not conduct any additional missile tests. It ended a diplomatic standoff between the United States and China, which blocked an American-backed effort to rally international criticism of North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Saturday's accord came less than a week after President Obama called on the Security Council to punish North Korea for launching the rocket in violation of U.N. resolutions banning Pyongyang's use of ballistic missile technology.
It came less than 48 hours after U.S. and Chinese diplomats brokered a compromise text that registered displeasure over North Korea's launch while encouraging it to agree to the early resumption of six-nation talks aimed at "achieving the verifiable denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula. Those talks broke down in December over a dispute between the United States and North Korea over an American plan to verify the dismantlement of Pyongyang's nuclear program.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/11/AR2009041101157.html

[Kittycat]

1. Worthless. A week late?

Why even bother?