NORTH Korea tested two more short-range missiles yesterday, thumbing its nose at the world hours after the United Nations Security Council condemned its provocative nuclear test.
Pyongyang also warned ships to stay away from the waters off its western coast this week, a sign the country may be gearing up for further missile tests.
The regime appeared to be displaying its might a day after conducting an underground atomic t
est that the Security Council condemned as a "clear violation" of a 2006 resolution banning the regime from developing its nuclear programme.
France called for new sanctions, while the United States and Japan pushed for strong action against North Korea for testing a bomb that Russian officials said was comparable in power to those that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War.
Russia, once a key backer of North Korea, condemned the test. Its UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, the current Security Council president, said the 15-member group would start work "quickly" on a new resolution.
But many doubted whether a new punishment would have any effect on a nation already penalised by numerous sanctions and clearly dismissive of the Security Council's jurisdiction.
North Korea's test of a long-range missile in July 2006 and its first nuclear test in October 2006 drew stiff sanctions from the UN and orders to refrain from ballistic missile-related activity, and to stop developing its nuclear programme. Ignoring the missile ban, North Korea went ahead and launched a long-range rocket on 5 April. The Security Council reacted with a censure but not sanctions, which North Korea's traditional allies, Russia and China, opposed.
Even if Russia and China support sanctions after Monday's underground test, it is unclear whether they will rein in the regime's atomic ambitions.
John Sawers, Britain's UN ambassador, said: "I agree that the North Koreans are recalcitrant and very difficult to hold to any agreement that they sign up to. But there is a limited range of options here."
Monday's nuclear test appeared to catch the world by surprise, but South Korea's spy chief, Won Sei-hoon, told MPs that Beijing and Washington had known Pyongyang was planning a trial some 20-25 minutes before it was carried out.
Russia said the test took place at 9:54am local time on Monday, and Mr Won confirmed two short-range missile tests from an east coast launch pad followed.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported three missile tests had been carried out on Monday, and two more yesterday. Two missiles – one ground-to-air, the other ground-to-ship, with a range of about 80 miles – were test-fired from an east coast launch pad, it said.
North Korea's neighbours and their allies scrambled to galvanise support for a strong, united response to Pyongyang's nuclear belligerence.
South Korea announced it would join a maritime web of more than 90 nations that intercept ships suspected of spreading weapons of mass destruction – a move North Korea warned would constitute an act of war.
US President Barack Obama and South Korea's Lee Myung-bak "agreed that the test was a reckless violation of international law that compels action in response," the White House said after the two leaders had spoken by telephone.
They vowed to "seek and support a strong Security Council resolution with concrete measures to curtail North Korea's nuclear and missile activities".
Mr Obama spoke, too, with Japanese prime minister Taro Aso, and the two agreed to step up co-ordination with South Korea, China and Russia.
Mr Obama reiterated the US commitment to defend both South Korean and Japan.
North Korea responded by accusing the US of hostility, and said its army and people were ready to defeat any American invasion. "The present US administration … is pursuing the same reckless policy as followed by the former Bush administration to stifle (North Korea] by force of arms," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.
Big unspoken fear is Kim Jong Il selling nuclear weapons to terroristsNORTH Korea's nuclear test makes it no likelier that the regime will actually launch a nuclear attack, but it adds a scary dimension to another threat: the defiant North as a facilitator of the atomic ambitions of others, potentially even terrorists, writes Robert Burns.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that North Korea had test-fired two short-range missiles yesterday after test-firing three short-range missiles on Monday. It's far from clear what diplomatic or other action the world community will take. So far, nothing they've done has worked.
At an earlier juncture of the long-running struggle to put a lid on North Korea's nuclear ambitions, the administration of President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s discussed with urgency the possibility of taking military action. That seems less likely now, with the North evidently nuclear-armed and the international community focused first on continuing the search for a non-military solution.
The North's second test of a nuclear device drew quick condemnation across the globe, including from its big neighbour and traditional ally, China. In the US, the Obama administration, which said the North's action invited stronger, unspecified pressure, has consistently called for Korean de-nuclearisation but seemed not to have anticipated a deepening nuclear crisis. Two weeks ago, the administration's special envoy for disarmament talks with North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, said during a visit to Asian capitals that "everyone is feeling relatively relaxed about where we are at this point in the process". They are no longer.
North Korea conducted its first atomic test in 2006 and is thought to have enough plutonium to make at least a half a dozen nuclear bombs. It is also developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, in defiance of UN actions.
Two of the main worries about North Korea are left unsaid: Would it use a nuclear bomb to attack a neighbour or the United States? And might it continue an established pattern of selling nuclear wherewithal and missiles to foreign buyers?
Graham Allison, an assistant secretary of defence in the Clinton administration, said the international community regularly underestimated North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's willingness to do the unexpected. "Could this guy believe he could sell a nuclear bomb to Osama bin Laden?" Allison asked. "Why not?"
• Robert Burns has covered security affairs for the Associated Press since 1990.
