President Roh's office pledges to carry out obligations from UNSC resolution

The office of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said Monday the government will faithfully observe its obligations required by the latest U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning North Korea for its proclaimed nuclear weapon test.

"North Korea's nuclear development is an illegal act and a grave threat to the international order of nuclear nonproliferation. The government will persistently push for the dismantling of the North's nuclear weapons," Roh's spokesman Yoon Tae-young said.

"But it is not desirable if such efforts to keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons amplify security risks and economic instability," he said in a press briefing.

He said Seoul will strive to force North Korea to return to the negotiating table and implement the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Regarding the government's engagement policy towards the North, he said, "The policy needs readjustment as the circumstances have changed after North Korea conducted a nuclear weapon test. In that sense, the engagement policy is already being readjusted."

The spokesman stressed the government has already suspended its rice and fertilizer shipments to North Korea as part of its sanctions on the communist state following its missile launches in July.

He added the government has yet to determine whether to continue its economic cooperation projects with the North under way at the inter-Korean industrial park in Kaesong and the North's scenic resort at Mount Geumgang.

UNSC Resolution 1718, unanimously adopted by the 15-member council on Saturday, condemns North Korea's action as a "clear threat" to international peace and imposes non-military sanctions on the communist regime to prevent transfers of material, technology and funds related to missiles, nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in and out of the country.

It also calls on the 192 U.N. member states to authorize stops and searches of North Korean cargo ships to interdict imports and exports of WMD.

Seoul, Oct. 16 (Yonhap News)