From C K Nayak
SEOUL: The two- day second World Nuclear Summit aimed to make the globe a safer place begins here Monday but there is heightened tension with the neighbouring ever-delinquent North Korea which worsened with flash point visit of US President Barak Obama to the controversial demilitarised zone and India joining the voice against the communist country.
World leaders including Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh flocked to Seoul for a summit to prevent nuclear-armed terror, but tensions over North Korea’s push to arm itself with nuclear weapons and long-range missiles is set to dominate the sidelines of the event, diplomats here said Sunday. Leaders from 53 nations and four international organizations will convene Monday and Tuesday for the second Nuclear Security Summit, but North Korea’s planned rocket launch for this month has overshadowed the global gathering.
Besides India , Thailand and New Zeland too condemned China supported North Korea for going ahead with a satellite launch feared to be carrying missiles. In a joint statement after their parleys, Dr Singh and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called for maintaining peace and stability in the peninsula including its denuclearisation.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday issued a warning to North Korea about its planned long-range rocket launch, saying the provocative move will deepen its isolation, hurt relations with neighboring countries and harm the prospects of future negotiations.
“I’ll simply say North Korea will achieve nothing by threats or by provocations,” Obama said during a joint news conference after summit talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. “North Korea knows its obligations and must take irreversible steps to meet those obligations.” Obama also said North Korea should understand “bad behavior will not be rewarded.”
The situation took a turn for the worse as Obama visited the tense border with North Korea, calling the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) “freedom’s frontier.” “The contrast between South Korea and North Korea could not be clearer, could not be starker,” Obama, who was wearing a dark windbreaker, told a group of American troops inside the DMZ.
North Korea has already took the summit as a provocation and declared to retaliate in case of any adverse situation. It has gone ahead with bringing the main part of the so called satellite even while the preparations for the summit is on.
Obama launched the first nuclear security summit in Washington two years ago and the Seoul summit is aimed at working out more specific actions to prevent loose nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. Nuclear issues on North Korea and Iran are not on the agenda for the summit, but Seoul officials have said that the North Korean nuclear issue can be discussed bilaterally on the margins of the summit.
Except North Korea, leaders of all member countries involved in the six-party talks on ending the North’s nuclear drive will attend the Seoul summit. The multilateral talks, involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia, have been stalled since late 2008.
The Lee-Obama meeting, the first since the death in December of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, comes amid heightened tension following the North’s announcement of plans last week to launch a rocket in mid-April to put what it called a “working” satellite into orbit.
South Korea, Japan and the U.S. have defined the North’s rocket launch plan as a disguised test of its improved long-range missile technology and warned that it would retaliate should the country go ahead with the plan.The North’s move also puts in jeopardy an aid-for-denuclearization deal it signed with the U.S. in late February, promising to suspend its uranium enrichment and allow in U.N. nuclear monitors in exchange for 240,000 tons of food aid.
A principle achievement for the first nuclear security summit in Washington was gaining agreement by all 47 participating nations that nuclear terrorism is among the top global security challenges and that strong nuclear material security measures are the most effective way to prevent it.
The Seoul summit will serve as a “stepping stone” to translate the political will generated at the Washington summit into action, while laying a cornerstone for attaining key nuclear security goals in the mid and long-term, Seoul diplomats said.
Negotiators, or “sherpas” from the 53 participating nations for the Seoul summit, held their final meeting in Seoul on Friday and fixed the agenda for the Seoul summit and the text of the so-called “Seoul Communique” that will be announced at the end of the summit, said Hahn Choong-hee, a spokesman for the summit.
On the sidelines of the two-day summit, President Lee Myung-bak will hold a series of bilateral summit meetings with Obama, China’s Hu Jintao, Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the issue of the North’s planned rocket launch, Kim said. Obama and Hu are also scheduled to hold a bilateral summit during the nuclear security conference.