Obama extends U.S. sanctions on N. Korea

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, June 24 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday extended
his country's sanctions on North Korea amid tightening international pressure on
the North following its recent nuclear test and other provocations.
The sanctions, which extend restrictions on commerce with North Korea for another
year under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading With
the Enemy Act, come after the U.N. Security Council slapped financial sanctions,
an overall arms embargo and sea, air and land cargo inspections on the reclusive
communist state for its May 25 nuclear test, the second of its kind after one in
2006.
"Because the existence and risk of the proliferation of weapons-usable fissile
material on the Korean Peninsula continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary
threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, the
national emergency declared on June 26, 2008, and the measures adopted on that
date to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond June 26, 2009,"
Obama said in a notice to Congress.
"I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared by former President
George W. Bush a year earlier," he said.
Laws restricting property dealings with North Korea were to expire on Friday, one
year after they were invoked, unless otherwise stated by the president.
Bush terminated the Trading with the Enemy Act for North Korea on June 26, 2008,
as Pyongyang presented a detailed list of its nuclear activities, blew up a
cooling tower connected to its Yongbyon facility and pledged to return to stalled
six-party talks on ending its nuclear programs.
He also had notified Congress of his intention to remove North Korea from a list
of state sponsors of terror, a move long sought after by the North in order to
open access to financial assistance from the international community to help its
isolated, impoverished economy.
North Korea was first put on the terrorism list soon after it downed a South
Korean airplane over Burma in 1987, killing all 115 passengers. Its delisting
came in October 2008 and paved the way for a fresh round of multilateral nuclear
talks deadlocked for nearly a year.
While talk has abounded recently over the possibility of relisting the North due
to the deepening nuclear dispute, U.S. officials and experts have said the
regime's nuclear and ballistic missile tests do not constitute terrorist acts and
thus do not meet the requirement for relisting the North.
Reports of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's failing health and rumors of a power
succession have been cited as factors behind the North's recently stepped-up
hostility, escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula to their highest level
since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
In an apparent move to smoothen a power transition to Kim Jong-il's third and
youngest son, Jong-un, Pyongyang has in recent months conducted nuclear and
ballistic missile tests and threatened to enhance its nuclear arsenal unless the
U.S. and its allies apologize for renewed sanctions on the North.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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