President Barack Obama called Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao to urge his help in communicating to North Korea that its uranium-enrichment program and recent artillery attack on a South Korean island are "unacceptable."
Obama placed the call, made today Beijing time, to discuss Korea tensions, the White House said in a statement. Both leaders agreed to work together to make the peninsula free of nuclear weapons, it said.
The call coincided with the start of live-firing drills by South Korea’s military, similar to exercises held last month that North Korea said prompted it to shell Yeonpyeong, killing four people. China is North Korea’s main ally, helping sustain Kim Jong Il’s regime with food, fuel and foreign currency.
Obama “urged China to work with us and others to send a clear message to North Korea that its provocations are unacceptable,” the White House said. Hu said all sides need to be calm to prevent the situation from getting out of control, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The U.S., Japan and South Korea, China’s three biggest trading partners, have all urged officials in Beijing to use their influence over North Korea to restrain its actions. The U.S. and South Korea last week conducted naval exercises in the sea between the peninsula and China.
Today’s South Korean drills cover 29 areas, including one about 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Daecheong island close to the disputed western border. A spokesman at the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul, who declined to be named citing military policy, couldn’t confirm whether all the drills had started on schedule.
‘Catastrophic Consequences’
North Korea yesterday warned that the South risked “catastrophic consequences” with the exercises. The government “is so hell-bent on the moves to escalate the confrontation and start a war that it is recklessly behaving bereft of reason,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary.
Tensions have risen on the Korean peninsula since North Korea’s Nov. 23 attack on Yeonpyeong, which also lies close to the western maritime boundary. Prime Minister Kim Hwang Sik reiterated today that South Korea will bolster its military presence in border areas.
North Korea fired artillery at the fishing community and military outpost in the first shelling of South Korean soil since the 1950-1953 war. It said it responded to provocation after South Korea fired into waters each side claims.
The North doesn’t recognize the western sea border demarcated by the United Nations after the war and demands it should be redrawn to include Yeonpyeong and four neighboring islands.
‘Reckless Moves’
North Korea two days ago blasted the U.S., South Korea and Japan for “reckless moves” to create a military alliance that threatens peace in North Asia. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will today host Japan’s Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara and South Korean counterpart Kim Sung Hwan in Washington to discuss regional security.
“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is getting tenser as the days go by and the danger of a war is increasing hour by hour,” KCNA reported, citing a commentary in the state-run Rodong newspaper. “The U.S. is giving spurs to an arms buildup and preparations for a war.”
source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-06/obama-calls-hu-to-urge-china-assist-in-restraining-north-korea.html
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