North Korea's state-controlled media issued a statement on June 17 warning of a "thousand-fold" military retaliation against the United States and its allies if provoked. BBC News quoted from a commentary published by Pyongyang's state news agency KCNA: "If the US and its followers infringe upon our republic's sovereignty even a bit, our military and people will launch a one hundred- or one thousand-fold retaliation with [a] merciless military strike. The nuclear program is not the monopoly of the US."

The AP reported that the KCNA statement also called President Obama "a hypocrite" for advocating a nuclear-free world while making "frantic efforts" to develop new nuclear weapons at home. The report did not mention the summit held between Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington the previous day, during which the two leaders agreed to build a regional and global "strategic alliance" to persuade North Korea to dismantle all its nuclear weapons. However, there seemed to be an obvious connection between the timing of the report and the Obama-Lee meeting.

At a news conference held in the White House Rose Garden with President Lee, Obama said the United States would "vigorously" pursue an end to North Korea's nuclear program. The president stated:

President Lee and I reiterated our shared commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. We have reaffirmed the endurance of our alliance, and America's commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea. And we discussed the measures that we are taking with our partners in the region — including Russia, China and Japan — to make it clear to North Korea that it will not find security or respect through threats and illegal weapons.

Click Here to Continue Reading at TheNewAmerican.com

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (1)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Peter Steele said:

FDR and Truman's fault for our having N. Korea. FDR was a buddy of Communist Dictator Joseph Stalin with the help of the NY Times and Truman fired General Douglas McArthur, my late father's favorite WWII General being related to General George S. Patton, Jr who was murdered by the Soviet NKVD on December 9, 1946. Dad was luckier until Carter got him snd he died as a result of that. I hated LBJ who was as socialist as FDR was. I don't read that communist/socialist/democrat shielding NY Times and thankfully Dad was not given an obituary in the Times as I made sure my late mother who was shattered by Dad's death was not given an obituary in the Walter Duranty and Herbert Mathews paper. Truman is responsible for losing Korea and the nuclear North Korea problem we have today. Every Democrate President since Woodrow Wilson have been socialist failures.

report abuse vote down vote up

June 21, 2009
Votes: +0