U.S. ready for any contingency from N. Korea: Obama

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, June 21 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President Barack Obama has said the United
States is prepared for any contingency involving North Korea, repeating he will
not reward North Korea for its provocations.

"This administration, and our military, is fully prepared for any contingencies,"
Obama said in an interview with CBS News, which was done on Friday and will be
broadcast Monday on The Early Show, according to the Associated Press. "What
we're not going to do is to reward belligerence and provocation."
Obama was reiterating his position expressed early last week in a joint press
conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington.
Obama said at that time he will not bow to the North's traditional brinkmanship,
noting "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."
Lee also said that the "North Koreans will come to understand that this is
different, that they will not be able to repeat the past or their past tactics
and strategies."
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Thursday that he had directed the
deployment of interceptors in Hawaii and Alaska to block any North Korean
ballistic missile coming towards U.S. territory.
The Obama administration last month cut back a plan that would have increased the
number of interceptors to 44 from 30 due to budget restraints, saying 30
interceptors are enough to counter North Korea's missile capability "for some
years to come."
Reports said that North Korea is preparing for a ballistic missile launch in
defiance of U.N. resolutions banning the reclusive communist state from
conducting any further nuclear and ballistic missile tests.
"We're obviously watching the situation in the North, with respect to missile
launches, very closely. And we do have some concerns, if they were to launch a
missile to the west, in the direction of Hawaii," Gates told reporters. "I think
we are in a good position, should it become necessary to protect American
territory."
In a related move, Sen. John McCain told CBS that the U.S. should intercept a
North Korean vessel, the Kang Nam, if the U.S. secures hard evidence that the
vessel is carrying weapons of mass destruction.
"I think we should board it. It's going to contribute to the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction to rogue nations that pose a direct threat to the
United States," McCain said in an interview with the CBS program Face the Nation.
Reports said the U.S. military has been closely monitoring the Kang Nam since its
departure from a North Korean port Tuesday.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly Friday said he hoped that "North Korea
would comply with international law and allow the inspection," describing the
Kang Nam as "a ship of interest."
The latest U.N. resolution, adopted to punish North Korea for its nuclear test on
May 25 -- the first since 2006 -- does not allow the use of force to implement
the sanctions.
Critics are also question whether China will interdict the North Korean ship,
which was sailing waters off China, for suspect cargo on the high seas, where
inspections are illegal unless approved by the flag state.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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