US President Barack Obama has adopted a tougher stance over North Korea's nuclear arsenal, seeking to pile pressure on Pyongyang with financial sanctions and a crackdown on arms shipments on the high seas.
Faced with a defiant regime and failed negotiations, the US administration has shifted its emphasis from diplomacy to enforcing new punitive sanctions designed to choke off revenue and disrupt transfers of arms and nuclear technology in and out of North Korea.
The measures adopted by the United Nations Security Council do not authorize military force to board North Korean ships, US defense officials told AFP on Wednesday.
But under the UN resolution, the US Navy will ask to inspect North Korean vessels and ships flagged from other countries suspected of carrying banned cargo, officials said.
The sanctions prohibit shipments of all weaponry except small arms.
The resolution also calls on governments with ships carrying possible banned material to or from North Korea to allow an inspection on the high seas or at a nearby port, officials said.
And states that allow North Korean ships to enter their ports are expected to come under diplomatic pressure to permit a search.
Arms shipments have "been a main source of revenue for the North for quite some time, and we want to put a stop to it," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters Tuesday.
The sanctions were also meant to prevent North Korea from delivering nuclear and missile technology "to other countries and other non-state actors where it could pose a threat to us and our allies," he said.
Obama signaled the more aggressive approach after talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak on Tuesday, saying major powers were no longer willing to grant concessions in response to "belligerent" moves by Pyongyang.
"There's been a pattern in the past where North Korea behaves in a belligerent fashion, and if it waits long enough is then rewarded with foodstuffs and fuel and concessionary loans and a whole range of benefits," Obama said.
Washington and its allies, the US president said, were determined to break that pattern.
"Belligerent, provocative behavior that threatens neighbors will be met with significant, serious enforcement of sanctions that are in place," he vowed.
Obama's predecessors, former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, tried and failed to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program in return for food and fuel.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed the administration's frustration over negotiations with the North during a recent trip to the region, saying: "I'm tired of buying the same horse twice."
The tougher line could provoke more defiant acts from North Korea, US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice warned over the weekend.
US intelligence officials have reportedly advised Obama that Pyongyang was likely to respond to UN sanctions with a third nuclear test.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have mounted after Pyongyang carried out its second nuclear detonation last month, which followed what Washington said was a disguised test of a long-range missile in April.
On Saturday, the North vowed to build more atomic bombs and start enriching uranium for a new nuclear weapons program, in response to the latest UN sanctions.
South Korean media meanwhile reported that Pyongyang was rushing to withdraw money from its overseas bank accounts.
South Korea's Dong-A Ilbo newspaper, quoting sources in Beijing, said the North had begun withdrawing funds in Macau and elsewhere fearing its accounts would be frozen.
North Korea has been accused of using foreign bank accounts for counterfeiting, drug dealing and money laundering.
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Japan bans all trade with NKorea
Japan on Tuesday banned all remaining trade with North Korea to punish the isolated communist regime for its latest nuclear and missile tests, officials said.
Prime Minister Taro Aso's cabinet agreed on "a total ban on exports" to the impoverished state on top of an import freeze imposed after the North's first atomic test in 2006, a trade ministry official said.
Tokyo's latest move comes amid worries Pyongyang may soon conduct a third nuclear test after the UN Security Council voted Friday on tougher sanctions in response to the regime's May 25 test.
Japan's exports to the North last year totalled just 792.6 million yen (8.2 million dollars), mainly machinery and transport equipment such as trains and vehicles, food, electronics and industrial goods, the finance ministry says.
"The ban will be effective until April 13 next year. We have expanded the ban to cover all goods," said the trade ministry official, Masaru Yamazumi.
Analysts see Japan's new sanctions as largely symbolic because North Korea conducts the bulk of its trade with its large communist neighbour and closest ally China, also its biggest source of aid.
"Japan's additional sanctions won't have a substantial impact on North Korea," said Lee Young Hwa, a Korean affairs expert at Kansai University.
"The only thing left for Japan to do now is to persuade China to fully comply with the UN sanctions," Lee told AFP.
The UN Security Council resolution adopted Friday, which does not authorise the use of force, calls on member states to impose expanded sanctions on the regime of Kim Jong-Il over its latest provocations.
For Japan, a total export ban is among the last economic measures it had left to use against North Korea. It stopped all imports in 2006 when it also banned most visits by its citizens and port calls by its ships.
To target the regime's leaders, Japan has also enforced UN rules and banned exports of 24 luxury products — including caviar, fatty tuna, beef and several high-end consumer electronics.
Last month Japan also tightened a watch on money flows to North Korea, requiring that all remittances over 10 million yen (100,000 dollars) be reported, lowering the limit to a third of the previous threshold.
Under the latest changes, foreigners living in Japan will be banned from re-entering the country if they violate any of the restrictions on trade, monetary flows and travel to North Korea, media reports said.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said Monday Japan was also mulling law changes to allow it to conduct UN-authorised ship inspections of North Korean vessels suspected to be carrying missile or nuclear materials.
Kawamura said the government would propose details about the plan to the ruling coalition this week.
Japan's post-World War II pacifist constitution strictly limits the operations and reach of its navy, and the coast guard can usually carry out cargo inspections only within Japan's territorial waters.
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Obama warns North Korea a 'grave threat'
US President Barack Obama has warned that nuclear North Korea is a "grave threat" and said he would not tolerate the Stalinist state's provocative strategy of extracting rewards with belligerent behavior.
Obama signaled Tuesday an airtight alliance with visiting South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, after weeks of tensions sparked by North Korea's test of a nuclear device and expectations that another detonation could be on the way.
"North Korea has abandoned its own commitments and violated international law," Obama said, alongside Lee during his first appearance in the White House Rose Garden with a foreign leader.
"Its nuclear and ballistic missile programs pose a grave threat to (the) peace and security of Asia and to the world."
Obama offered Kim Jong-Il's reclusive state a way back to "full integration" into the global community through talks, but only if it verifiably dismantled its nuclear programs — and warned of stern consequences if it did not.
"There's been a pattern in the past where North Korea behaves in a belligerent fashion, and if it waits long enough is then rewarded with foodstuffs and fuel and concessionary loans and a whole range of benefits," he said.
"The message we're sending — and when I say 'we,' not simply the United States and the Republic of Korea, but I think the international community — is we are going to break that pattern."
Obama also vowed to defend South Korea and said Washington planned "serious enforcement" of sanctions against the North, a week after the UN Security Council tightened controls on arms shipments involving the hardline state.
And the US president said measures were being discussed with other regional partners involved in six-party denuclearization talks, namely China, Japan and Russia, "to make it clear to North Korea that it will not find security or respect through threats and illegal weapons."
After talks and lunch at the White House, Lee welcomed assurances that his country remains under the US security umbrella and said Obama, who advocates an eventual end to nuclear weapons, made clear it included the US nuclear deterrent.
"This has given the South Korean people a greater sense of security," Lee said.
"We agreed that under no circumstance are we going to allow North Korea to possess nuclear weapons," Lee said.
On the ground in Asia, Inter-Korean relations remained hostile Wednesday amid low expectations of success for a South Korean delegation in North Korea for talks on the future of a jointly-run industrial estate.
Speaking after the summit Obama, Lee had categorically rejected the North's new financial demands for the Kaesong estate as excessive.
But on the major economic issue for Lee on Tuesday, the South's leader said that he and Obama agreed to working-level talks to advance a free trade agreement — which the US leader had branded as flawed before taking office.
Obama said he was "committed" to advancing the free trade deal but refused to put a timeline on it, admitting that differences remained over exports of US beef and cars to South Korea.
Pyongyang sent east Asian tensions into overdrive last month with its second nuclear detonation, which followed what Washington said was a disguised test of a long-range missile in April.
Obama came to office offering negotiations with the North, but Kim's government has grown ever more defiant.
On Saturday, the North vowed to build more nuclear bombs and start enriching uranium for a new atomic weapons program, in response to the new UN sanctions.
Some analysts have speculated that the saber-rattling is primarily rooted in an attempt by ailing 67-year-old Kim to bolster a succession plan involving his youngest son, Kim Jong-Un.
The United States stations some 28,500 troops in South Korea and more than 40,000 more in nearby Japan, which also has tense relations with Pyongyang.
Lee, a conservative businessman, took over last year and delighted many in what was then George W. Bush's Washington by reversing a decade-long "sunshine policy" under which South Korea put few restrictions on aid to the impoverished North.
There has been growing speculation in Washington meanwhile that North Korea may soon conduct its third nuclear test.
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