UN deplores North Korea rocket launch

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Washington halts plans to send food aid to Pyongyang saying the impoverished state cannot be trusted

SUSAN RICE

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council said Friday it ‘deplored’ North Korea’s attempted rocket launch, as Washington halted plans to send food aid to Pyongyang saying the impoverished state cannot be trusted.

The UN’s paramount security body imposed sanctions on the isolated North in 2006 and 2009 after it staged nuclear weapons tests.

There are now fears that the communist state could stage a new nuclear test.

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations and the council president for April, said it ‘deplored this launch’ as a violation of the world body’s resolutions.

The 15-member Security Council is still negotiating a possible ‘presidential statement’ on the North Korean launch but diplomats said China had so far blocked moves to use stronger language.

It was ‘premature’ to say what kind of measure the council might take, but the United States “thinks a credible reaction is important,” Rice said.

China, the North’s closest international ally, has yet to say publicly that it considers the North Korean act a breach of UN resolutions or international law, but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Beijing to do more.

Clinton spoke by telephone with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi as she sought a “unified way to speak out and condemn this action,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

“We’re asking them to use their relationship with North Korea to convey our concern about their recent actions,” Toner told reporters.