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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Gates dismisses military option against N. Korea on ship sinking |
| 2010-06-07 |
| WASHINGTON, June 6 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Sunday ruled out a military option against North Korea after the North's torpedoing of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors in March. "As long as the regime doesn't care about what the outside world thinks of it, as long as it doesn't care about the well-being of its people, there is not a lot you can do about it, to be quite frank, unless you are willing at some point to use military force," Gates said in an interview with BBC. "And nobody wants to do that." Gates' remarks came one day after he spoke to the annual regional security forum of defense ministers from 28 countries, called the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore, and said that the U.S. was reviewing "additional options" against North Korea without specifying, in order not to set "the wrong precedent." Gates supported South Korea's bid to condemn North Korea in the Security Council. "You can bring together additional pressure; you can do another resolution at the U.N.," he said. Gates said Saturday that the U.S. would delay the joint military exercise with South Korea in the Yellow Sea, originally planned for this week as a show of force against North Korea, to wait for the Security Council to take action. South Korean officials said that the joint naval exercise will be conducted late this month to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, which falls on June 25, with the participation of a U.S. aircraft carrier USS George Washington. In delivering a letter to Mexican Ambassador Claude Heller, the rotating chairman of the 15-nation council this month, to ask for "some action," South Korea's U.N. Ambassador Park In-kook did not elaborate on what kind of action South Korea seeks, saying Seoul will present a concrete position after further consultations with council members. A senior South Korean official is expected to soon visit Beijing to seek support for rebuking Pyongyang, which China has not yet officially blamed for the Cheonan's sinking. China has only stressed the need to "avoid conflict" and "maintain peace and stability" on the Korean Peninsula. China, which wields veto power on the Security Council, has long been lukewarm to any sanctions on North Korea, its staunchest communist ally that is heavily dependent on China for food, energy and other necessities. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 WMF > OBAMA'S NEW US NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY SHOWS US RECOGNITION, FEAR OF ITS STEADILY INCREASING GEOPOL WEAKNESS. FEAR BY THE US OF ITS INABILITY TO LEAD NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER DUE TO MORAL AND ECONOMIC CHAOS OR CONFUSION. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2010-06-07 22:55 |
| #1 Projecting this kind of weakness will have a measurable price. |
| Posted by: abu do you love 2010-06-07 12:52 |