US secretary of state Hillary Clinton urged Asia today to enforce tough sanctions against North Korea as Pyongyang threatened a "physical response" to Washington's plans for joint military drills with South Korea.
Ms Clinton, speaking in Hanoi at the Asia-Pacific's biggest security dialogue, also called on Burma's neighbours to pressure the country's military rulers for democratic reforms, and said Asia must join the global community in sending a "clear signal" to Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions.
"One measure of the strength of a community of nations is how it responds to threats to its members, neighbours and region," Ms Clinton told the 27-member ASEAN Regional Forum, which includes regional powers China, Japan and Russia along with the United States, European Union and Canada.
Ms Clinton unveiled new US sanctions this week against North Korea, blamed by both Washington and Seoul for the March sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors and sharpened tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear programme.
A North Korean diplomat said Washington's new sanctions and the US-South Korean drills would be met with a "physical response", and that charges it torpedoed the South's warship had pushed the divided Korean peninsula "to the brink of explosion".
"There will be a physical response to the steps imposed by the United States militarily," Ri Tong-il, a member of Pyongyang's delegation in Hanoi, told reporters. The military exercises, he added, would violate North Korean sovereignty.
The new sanctions target the ruling elite in the impoverished and isolated communist state and build on earlier UN sanctions that curbed trade with the North in hopes of persuading it to abandon its atomic ambitions.
Ms Clinton said it was essential Asian nations enforce the punitive measures to encourage North Korea "to take the steps it must" to stop nuclear development and seek real peace.
She later told reporters Washington hoped for the day when Pyongyang was "less concerned about making threats and more concerned about making opportunities".
Ms Clinton said it was essential Asian nations enforce these sanctions to encourage North Korea "to take the steps it must" to stop nuclear development and seek real peace with South Korea.
The Obama administration has expressed frustration that, despite US offers of greater engagement, Burma's military rulers have refused to budge on key demands including freeing an estimated 2,000 political prisoners such as Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
It has also said it is concerned by reports that Burma is seeking North Korean help to develop its own nuclear programme, which if true could open an alarming new front in the battle against global atomic proliferation.
"What's happening in Burma is not only dangerous for the people who endure life under the regime, though they are first and foremost on our minds," Ms Clinton said, adding there was a direct link between open and free societies and political and economic stability.
Ms Clinton's visit to Hanoi is part of the Obama administration's broader effort to boost US engagement with Asia, in part to counter the rising influence of China.
She said she would return to Vietnam in November for another regional summit, and that president Barack Obama would invite ASEAN leaders to a Washington summit in coming months.
Reuters