U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that new U.N. penalties against North Korea provide the necessary tools to help check the communist nation's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons, AP reported. The latest sanctions, approved by the U.N. Security Council on Friday, are aimed at depriving North Korea of financing used to build its nuclear program. The U.N. resolution also authorizes searches of North Korean ships suspected of transporting illicit ballistic missile and nuclear materials. «This was a tremendous statement on behalf of the world community that North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver those weapons through missiles is not going to be accepted by the neighbors as well as the greater international community,» Clinton said at a news conference in Niagara Falls, Ontario, after talks with Canada's foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon. «I think these sanctions ... give the world community the tools we need to take appropriate action.» North Korea has responded to the new U.N. moves with more defiance, further complicating President Barack Obama's ability to resolve the nuclear impasse. The North promised on Saturday to step up its nuclear bomb-making program by enriching uranium. It also threatened war on any country that dares to stop its ships on the high seas. «The North Koreans' continuing provocative actions are deeply regrettable,» Clinton said. «They have now been denounced by everyone, they have become further isolated, and it is not in the interest of the people of North Korea for that kind of isolation to continue.» Clinton said the resolution «represented a unified response to the provocative actions» by the North over the past few months. The U.S. will work with its allies to enforce the measure «in a vigorous way to send a clear message that we intend to do all we can to prevent continued proliferation» by the North, she said. The North's threats were the first public acknowledgment that the reclusive regime has been running a secret uranium enrichment program. In a move that could further escalate the nuclear standoff with the U.S., North Korea said it has reprocessed more than one-third of its spent nuclear fuel rods and pledged to weaponize its new plutonium, a key ingredient of atomic bombs along with enriched uranium. North Korea, which conducted its second nuclear test on May 25, warned that any attempted blockade by the U.S. and its allies would be regarded as «an act of war and met with a decisive military response.» Cannon said North Korea's recent conduct was «unacceptable.» He said he was pleased that the U.N. resolution called upon North Korea to resume six-party negotiations, which began in 2003 with South Korea, Russia, China, Japan, and the United States. The international talks, Clinton said, remain «an open opportunity.» Clinton was in Ontario to mark the 100th anniversary of the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, which created an international joint commission to settle disputes between the two countries.
