United States: The US has urged China to put pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme by fully implementing a UN resolution imposing sanctions against Pyongyang.
Speaking a day after the UN Security Council voted unanimously in favour of sanctions, the US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said China must heed the resolution's call to search all cargo going in and out of North Korea for nuclear materials.
"China itself now has an obligation to make sure it complies with the resolution. We'll see what actually comes out of Beijing," he said.
Although China voted in favour of the resolution, it has expressed reservations about the call to search North Korean cargo ships, fearing that such action could provoke Pyongyang into escalating the conflict. The resolution bans the export of all nuclear materials and some other weapons and calls on all countries to freeze North Korean funds connected with the nuclear programme and to inspect cargo vessels entering and leaving the country. The resolution rules out military action against North Korea, however, stating explicitly that such action would require a new resolution.
Mr Bolton said that North Korea's apparent nuclear test "had to have been humiliating" to China, which is Pyongyang's most powerful ally and supplier of food and energy.
After all of the efforts China had made over the years to protect North Korea from international opprobrium, "for the North Koreans in the face of all that to test had to get quite a reaction in Beijing. And I think we're still seeing that play out", Mr Bolton said.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who is due to visit China, Japan and South Korea this week, expressed confidence that all countries would enforce the UN resolution.
North Korea's UN ambassador, Pak Gil Yon, walked out of Saturday's security council meeting after accusing members of "gangster-like" action and warning that Pyongyang considered any further US pressure a "declaration of war".
Mr Bolton, who is not renowned for his diplomatic tact, said the North Korean's gesture was "the contemporary equivalent of Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the desk of the general assembly" in 1960.
An angry Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, told Mr Bolton "even in an emotional state, not to use inappropriate analogies".
