05 April 2009
Obama Condemns North Korea’s Missile Launch
Washington — President Obama condemned North Korea’s launch of a long-range Taepodong-2 missile April 4 as a threat to the security of Northeast Asia and international peace and security.
“With this provocative act, North Korea has ignored its international obligations, rejected unequivocal calls for restraint, and further isolated itself from the community of nations,” Obama said April 5 in Prague, where he gave a speech on nuclear proliferation.
Obama identified the rocket fired by the North Koreans as a Taepodong-2 missile, which has a range of more than 6,700 kilometers, putting it within striking distance of Alaska, Hawaii and most of East Asia.
Obama was in Prague on April 5 to attend the U.S.-European Union Summit before concluding his eight-day trip to Europe in Turkey on April 6. He attended the G20 Financial Summit in London April 1–2, and the 2009 NATO Summit in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany, April 3–4.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command, at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, acknowledged April 5 that North Korea launched the three-stage Taepodong-2 missile at 10:30 p.m. EDT April 4 (0230 GMT). “Stage one of the missile fell into the Sea of Japan/East Sea. The remaining stages along with the payload itself landed in the Pacific Ocean,” the Northern Command said in a prepared statement.
The missile apparently flew over Japan, but there have been no reports of debris falling on Japanese cities or the countryside, Japanese officials said in published news reports.
The missile was launched from the coastal Musudan-ri launch site in the North Hamgyong province near the tip of the East Korea Bay in northeastern North Korea, both the South Korean and U.S. governments said. The launch site was once called Taepodong, which is the source of the missile’s name.
The Taepodong-2 has suffered from design problems brought on by merging a foreign design with the design of North Korea’s medium-range Rodong ballistic missiles. This has led to structural flight problems, according to western arms analysts. The missile has never flown successfully.
North Korean officials said in advance of the launch that it was intended to put an “experimental communications satellite” into orbit, but western analysts said the launch was intended to test the Taepodong-2. The initial launch was delayed because of high winds in the area.
According to Northern Command, at no time was the North Korean missile a threat to North America or Hawaii. Japan and the United States had been closely monitoring the launch since before North Korean officials announced they intended to launch it.
Obama said the launch was clearly in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718, which forbids North Korea from further nuclear testing or ballistic missile launches. The October 2006 resolution imposed arms and financial sanctions on North Korea after it conducted its first nuclear test.
The U.N. Security Council was scheduled to meet in an emergency mid-afternoon session April 5 in New York. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is traveling with the president in Europe, was working throughout the morning to build international consensus on condemning North Korea’s missile launch.
“We will immediately consult with our allies in the region, including Japan and the Republic of Korea, and members of the U.N. Security Council to bring this matter before the council,” Obama said in Prague. “I urge North Korea to abide fully by the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council and to refrain from further provocative actions.”
The United States and the European Union issued a joint statement April 5 saying they were ready to work with others in urging North Korea to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons and hostile threats aimed at its neighbors.
“This action demands a response from the international community, including from the U.N. Security Council, to demonstrate that its resolutions cannot be defied with impunity,” the joint statement said.
The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman, issued a statement in Washington calling the missile test an unnecessary provocation that only serves to raise tensions in the region.
“It is alarming that North Korea carried out this missile launch in direct defiance of the international community,” Berman said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he regretted North Korea’s actions given the strong international appeal not to conduct the missile test. “Given the volatility in the region, as well as a stalemate in interaction among the concerned parties, such a launch is not conducive to efforts to promote dialogue, regional peace and stability,” Ban said in a statement from Paris.
“Preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery is a high priority for my administration,” Obama said in Prague. “The United States is fully committed to maintaining security and stability in Northeast Asia and we will continue working for the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through the Six-Party Talks.”
Negotiations in the Six-Party process — which includes the host China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Russia and the United States — stalled after North Korea refused to provide full disclosure of its nuclear weapons development program for international verification. The Six-Party process was set up to try and remove all nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula.
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