Seoul reaching out to China, Russia over NKorea

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL

South Korea has called for Chinese and Russian support in coming up with tougher sanctions against North Korea, according to Seoul’s foreign ministry Wednesday.

Both Beijing and Moscow have the power of veto on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), which vowed to draw up a new resolution against the North following its fifth ever nuclear test last Friday.

The test was the reclusive state’s most powerful to date.

Pyongyang is barred from nuclear and ballistic missile development, but has ignored a series of UNSC measures aimed at reining in its ambitions to build an armory of weapons able to reach as far as the mainland United States, not to mention South Korea.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se spoke Tuesday night with his Chinese and Russian counterparts in separate phone calls.

Yun’s ministry was cited by local news agency Yonhap on Wednesday as revealing that Yun stressed the importance of having North Korea “pay dearly” for its latest nuclear test.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly agreed that “the international community should take more stern measures against the North,” indicating Beijing’s disapproval of its old ally’s provocative behavior.

North Korea was joined by China in fighting against the South during the Korean War, which remains highly influential in terms of regional partnerships -- as evidenced by the presence of nearly 30,000 U.S. troops in South Korea.

Beijing’s backing is seen as all the more crucial because of the North’s economic reliance on China, but the Chinese government has grown suspicious of the South and the U.S. over their plans to deploy an anti-missile system known as THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) on the peninsula by the end of next year.

The talks with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saw him reportedly admit that Moscow “shares concerns with the international community” over last Friday’s nuclear test and would “take active part in discussions to adopt a new resolution”.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang’s state-run KCNA news agency condemned the U.S. as “reckless” Wednesday for a flight the previous day by two supersonic B-1B bombers over South Korea.

The allies view such flybys as a demonstration of their military capabilities.