SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s president ordered his top security officials Sunday to deal “resolutely and squarely” with new North Korean warnings of a nuclear war on the eve of his U.S. visit. In Washington, Vice President Joe Biden said “God only knows” what North Korea wants from the latest showdown.
President Lee Myung-Bak travels to Washington today for talks with President Barack Obama that are expected to focus on the North’s rogue nuclear and missile programs.
The trip comes after North Korea’s Foreign Ministry threatened war with any country that stops its ships on the high seas under sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council in response to North Korea’s May 25 nuclear test.
It also vowed Saturday to “weaponize” all its plutonium and acknowledged a long-suspected uranium-enrichment program for the first time.
The sanctions are aimed at depriving the North of financing used to build its nuclear program, and they authorize searches of North Korean ships suspected of transporting illicit ballistic missile and nuclear materials.
Biden said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that it is crucial that the U.S. and other nations “make sure those sanctions stick.”
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il, reportedly had a stroke 10 months ago. Analysts think there might be a plan in place to name his inexperienced 26-year-old son, Kim Jong Un, as the future leader.
“God only knows what he wants,” Biden said of Kim. “There’s all kinds of discussions. Whether this is about succession, wanting his son to succeed him. Whether or not he’s looking for respect. Whether or not he really wants a nuclear capability to threaten the region. . . . We can’t guess his motives.
“We just have to deal with the reality that a North Korea that is either proliferating weapons and/or missiles, or a North Korea that is using those weapons … is a serious danger and threat to the world, and particularly East Asia,” he said.
