Gates: Tougher N. Korea Sanctions Needed
The U.S. defense chief urged Asian allies Saturday to consider tougher sanctions against North Korea, noting that past efforts to cajole the reclusive regime into scrapping its nuclear weapons program have only emboldened it.
North Korea's yearslong use of scare tactics as a bargaining chip to secure aid and other concessions - only to later renege on promises - has worn thin the patience of five nations negotiating with it, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.
"They create a crisis and the rest of us pay the price to return to the status quo ante," Gates told the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual meeting of defense and security officials.
"There are other ways perhaps to get the North Koreans to change their approach," he said. "I think this notion that we buy our way back to the status quo ante is an approach that I personally at least think we ought to think very hard about."
The last time Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon, in 2006, its ally China was only mildly critical. This time, a top Chinese defense official just about echoed his American counterpart, reports CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier.
"We are resolutely opposed to nuclear proliferation," on the Korean Peninsula, said Lieutenant General Ma Xiaotian, China's Deputy Chief of General Staff.
The sharp statements were also echoed by South Korea's defense minister. Taken together, they reflect fears throughout the region that North Korea's nuclear and missile tests this past week could spiral out of control and lead to fighting.
One option the U.N. Security Council approved after the last test, was a Naval blockade, checking ships entering North Korean ports for contraband, reports Dozier. They never imposed it, fearing it would push Pyongyang into exactly the kind of behavior it's exhibiting now.
North Korea is telling its people it faces imminent attack, and has threatened everything from the new rocket launch to all-out war, if the U.N. blockades Pyongyang, reports Dozier.
The North said it would no longer honor a 1953 truce with South Korea after Seoul joined a 90-plus nation security alliance that seeks to curb nuclear trafficking on the seas.
The U.N. Security Council is also drafting financial and military sanctions against North Korea as punishment for the weapons testing. Similar sanctions approved after the North's first atomic test in 2006 have been only sporadically enforced, and largely ignored by China and Russia.
Gates warned North Korea against secretly selling its weapons technology to other rogue nations, saying the U.S. "will not stand idly by."
Later, at what officials called the first-ever meeting among defense chiefs from the U.S., Japan and South Korea, Gates asked his counterparts to begin considering other steps against North Korea should the regime continue to escalate its nuclear program.
The three military leaders did not discuss specific potential actions but U.S. officials who attended the half-hour meeting said any steps would be taken in self-defense.
South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee said the talks "could not have come at a better time."
"North Korea perhaps to this point may have mistakenly believed that it could be perhaps rewarded for its wrong behavior," Lee told reporters. "But that is no longer the case."
Gates does not plan to build up American troops in the region, and said Saturday he currently does not consider North Korea to pose a direct military threat to the United States.
Earlier in the day, Lt. Gen. Ma Xiaotian, the second-in-command of the Chinese military's General Staff, told the security forum that Beijing "has expressed a firm opposition and grave concern about the nuclear test."
The Obama administration also announced it would dispatch a delegation Sunday to Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and possibly Moscow over the next week to discuss how to respond to North Korea.
Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on nonproliferation issues with the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a former top U.S. State Department official, said North Korea is likely to respond heatedly to whatever actions the U.S. and allies take.
"North Korea's responses to date have been so far above and beyond the normal tit-for-tat," Fitzpatrick said Saturday. "If they again escalate, I think we could see some low-level conflict, some shooting incidents at sea. But then one can't say, well, we can't respond at all because North Korea might use it as a provocation. North Korea will use any response as a provocation."