South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said on Friday that China is unlikely to impose economic sanctions against North Korea despite international calls to punish the communist state for its recent launch of seven ballistic missiles and its continued boycott of international negotiations over its nuclear arms program.
"The mood in the international community to pressure North Korea is expected to continue under the current situation, where we are seeing no significant actions from the North to restore its (self-imposed) moratorium on missile launches or end its boycott of the six-party nuclear talks," Ban said at a monthly meeting of the state-run Korean Council on Foreign Relations.
Ban said the North's "unyielding stand" is posing a major stumbling block in the multilateral negotiations aimed at bringing a peaceful end to the North's nuclear ambitions.
South Korea and its allies in the six-nation nuclear negotiations have been looking to China, which is hosting the talks, to persuade its communist ally to end its boycott, which began in November. Beijing has so far failed to do so and was also apparently unable to talk Pyongyang out of firing seven ballistic missiles into the East Sea on July 5.
The South Korean foreign minister said the missile launches significantly "humiliated" Beijing, but said China still would not resort to what he called extreme measures, which include imposing economic sanctions, to try and change Pyongyang's behavior.
Contrary to earlier predictions, or hopes by North Korea, Beijing voted for a U.N. Security Council condemning the North's missile launches, thus allowing the resolution to pass the Security Council by a unanimous vote on July 15. The nuclear negotiations are also attended by the United States, Japan and Russia.
Seoul, Aug. 4 (Yonhap News)
FM Ban says China unlikely to join int'l pressure on N. Korea |
