SEOUL, South Korea — President Barack Obama warned North Korea and Iran on Monday that their options are few, and their friends fewer, as those nations refuse to back down from actions the world sees as menacing.
“By now it should be clear,” Obama said, addressing North Korea from the South Korean capital only about 30 miles away. “Your provocations and pursuit of nuclear weapons have not achieved the security you seek, they have undermined it. Instead of the dignity you desire, you are more isolated.”
As he spoke, his South Korean hosts warned they might shoot down parts of a North Korean rocket if they fell over South Korean territory, as worries about what Washington calls a long-range missile test overshadowed an international nuclear security summit. The summit of more than 50 nations opened with a dinner Monday.
In remarks earlier Monday at Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Obama directly challenged North Korea’s leaders “to have the courage to pursue peace.”
The threat posed by nearby nuclear-equipped North Korea also loomed large over Obama’s meeting on the sidelines of the summit Monday with the president of China, Pyongyang’s main ally.
The White House said Obama urged Chinese President Hu Jintao to use his country’s influence over North Korea to push the isolated country to meet its international obligations. Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said Hu indicated that China was taking North Korea’s planned rocket launch seriously and letting its concerns be known to the North’s leaders.
In his remarks Monday, Obama declared flatly that the United States has more nuclear weapons than it needs and can cut its arsenal without weakening its security or that of its allies. He pledged to keep trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons despite disagreements with Russia over the next phase of a largely successful disarmament program he sees as a hallmark of his presidency.
He also faces long if not impossible odds of winning Republican assent to new reductions in the US arsenal.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev noted as much, telling Obama at what will be their last meeting that progress on hard political issues is difficult “in an election year.”
Obama said the U.S. was also moving forward with Russia to eliminate enough plutonium for about 17,000 nuclear weapons and turn it into electricity. And he heralded an earlier agreement with Russia to reduce nuclear arsenals under the New START Treaty, which Obama called “the most comprehensive arms control agreement in nearly two decades.”