PH seeks new tack on NKorea crisis

CLARK, Pampanga: Defense Secre - -

Lorenzana said the resolutions issued by the United Nations Security Council seem to have failed to stop Pyongyang from making provocative actions. It might even have strengthened North Korean President Kim Jong-Un’s hold on his people.

“I think some of the major players in that area, the United States, China, and Russia need to come up with another approach to reach out to North Korea,” Lorenzana said in a news conference after a meeting between defense

ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and other countries.

The Security Council had issued a total of eight resolutions sanctioning North Korea since 2006. The two were issued in August and September 2017.

Each resolution condemned North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity and called on Pyongyang to cease its provocative activities.

“What I see there is that North Korea is being isolated slowly by the international community and we hope that sanctions will work,” Lorenzana said.

“But it feeds on his (Kim’s) fears of being invaded also and so he invaders… that’s what sanctions have been doing to North Korea. So instead of weakening him, it is strengthening his hold on his people,” he added.

Lorenzana said the Korean peninsula crisis was discussed during the meeting of defense ministers, who were “united in condemning the actions of North Korea, its ac nuclear weapons.”

Defense ministers were particularly worried that likely miscalculations or mistakes by the North Korea, Russia and China.

“So we had discussions to ask North Korea to follow the UN resolutions that have been promulgated,” he added.

China, SKorea defense chiefs meet

The defense chiefs of China and in nearly two years on Tuesday, Yonhap news agency reported.

The talks come at a time of bilateral tensions, with China opposed to South Korea’s deployment of a US anti-missile system, but the two nations are also looking to help defuse the North Korean nuclear crisis.

Neither side immediately released details about the reported meeting between South Korean Defense Minister Song YoungMoo and his Chinese counterpart, Chang Wanquan, on the sidelines of Asean meeting.

But Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, said it lasted for about half an hour, and raised the prospect of the two nations looking to mend relations following Seoul’s deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system.

Seoul insists it needs THAAD to guard against North Korea’s missile threats, but China sees it as a threat to its own security.

South Korea announced last month it would deploy more of the THAAD systems after the North’s sixth nuclear test and a series of missile launches that sparked global alarm.

Two launchers are already operational and since late last year China – the South’s top trading partner – has taken a series of measures against South Korean businesses, seen by Seoul as unofficial economic retaliation.