Thursday, 25 June 2009
U.S. President Barack Obama has extended sanctions against North Korea for one more year as the reclusive country is still considered a threat to the United States.
The sanctions against North Korea originally came into force in 2000, although the country enjoyed a brief respite when former president George Bush removed the communist state from a black list of countries supporting terrorism last year.
"Because the existence and risk of the proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean Peninsula continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, the national emergency declared on June 26, 2008, and the measures adopted on that date to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond June 26, 2009," the official proclamation reads on the White House website.
Pyongyang carried out a nuclear test on May 25 followed by a series of short-range missile launches, and has threatened to build up its nuclear arsenal to counter what it calls hostile U.S. policies. The move led to the UN imposing new sanctions on North Korea banning the import and export of nuclear material and all weapons except small arms.
Relations deteriorated last year when a round of six-nation talks ended in deadlock after the U.S. demanded samples be taken from North Korean facilities for further analysis.
Japanese and South Korean intelligence sources have said the North appears to be preparing to test-launch two intercontinental ballistic missiles, in defiance of new UN sanctions.
Japan's Yomiuri daily said last Thursday, citing Defense Ministry analysis and U.S. intelligence, that North Korea may even launch a long-range ballistic missile toward the U.S. state of Hawaii in early July.
On June 13, the reclusive communist state released a statement threatening "resolute military action" if the United States and its allies tried to isolate it, vowing to "weaponize" plutonium, and warning it would consider attempts to blockade it an "act of war."
