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PRAGUE: Barack Obama mapped out on Sunday his vision for a world
free of nuclear weapons on the latest leg of his tour of Europe
after venting his fury at North Korea’s “provocative” rocket
launch.
On the third leg of his maiden swing through the
continent, Obama was in the Czech Republic whose prime minister
recently branded the White House’s plans to revive the US economy
as “a road to hell.”
But any offense taken by the undiplomatic
language of his hosts is likely to be buried by the US president who
has won over Europe’s major leaders on his trips to London for a
G20 summit and a NATO gathering hosted by France and Germany.
Thousands of Czechs waited since before dawn to
catch a chance to hear Obama deliver a keynote nuclear proliferation
address outside Prague Castle that took on added significance
overnight with news that North Korea had carried out its pledge to
fire a rocket over Japan.
“With this provocative act, North Korea has
ignored its international obligations, rejected unequivocal calls
for restraint and further isolated itself from the community of
nations,” Obama said in a statement from Prague.
“We will immediately consult our allies in the
region, including Japan and the Republic of Korea, and members of
the UN Security Council to bring this matter before the council,”
he added.
Much of the speech is expected to focus on
easing nuclear tensions with Russia, which has been angered by plans
from Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush for an anti-missile shield
to be placed in the Czech Republic and Poland.
In the statement issued before the speech, Obama
confirmed plans to negotiate a new strategic arms reduction treaty
with Russia by the end of the year as part of an overall objective
of a creating a “world without nuclear weapons.”
“The new treaty will reduce strategic
offensive arms below the levels of the 2002 Moscow Treaty on
Strategic Offensive Reductions, which allows for 1,700 to 2,200
operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads,” it said.
The White House said that Obama would seek
Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and call
for a global summit on nuclear security in the speech.
The summit would discuss how to forge new
partnerships to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to secure
nuclear materials.
Gary Samore, Obama’s pointman on weapons for
mass destruction, said the president was under no illusions that his
“very ambitious” vision for a nuclear-free world would soon
become reality.
“In terms of a nuclear-free world, I think we
all recognize this is not a near-term possibility,” Samore told a
conference call in Washington.
“What we’re talking about are practical
measures we can take in the near term that will demonstrate our
commitment to achieving a nuclear-free world and will move us in
that direction in terms of reducing existing arsenals,” he said.
Czech Deputy Premier Alexandr Vondra told Agence
France-Presse last week that he did not expect the United States to
scrap its missile shield plans, despite Obama’s decision to review
the scheme, which Moscow opposes.
“It’s up to the Americans to say what their
ideas are,” he said.
The shield project was officially devised by
Bush to defend against long-range ballistic missiles possibly fired
by “rogue states” such as Iran, but Moscow views it as a threat
to Russian security.
While the Czechs have been choosing their words
carefully on the missile shield, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has
made little effort to disguise his opposition to Obama’s spending
plans, telling EU lawmakers last month they represented the “road
to hell.”
The White House brushed off Topolanek’s
comments as being for domestic consumption, coming the day after his
government was defeated in a no-confidence motion.
The summit was to have been the icing on the
cake of the Czechs’ six-month EU presidency, but Topolanek’s
domestic political woes have hampered his ability to speak on behalf
of the 27-nation bloc.
Obama’s visit has turned Prague’s historic
center into a well-guarded fortress with 4,000 police officers on
duty. There is a rally protesting the US missile shield, scheduled
for Sunday afternoon.
After the summit, Obama heads to Turkey on the
final leg of what is his first trip as president outside North
America.
Security threat limited
Sunday’s rocket launch will give North
Korea’s missile program a big boost if proved to have been
successful but it does not immediately make the world a more
dangerous place, analysts say.
Nuclear-armed Pyongyang said that the launch
successfully put into orbit a communications satellite, which is now
broadcasting songs in praise of its past and present revolutionary
leaders.
The United States said that North Korea used a
Taepodong-2—a three-stage missile capable of reaching Alaska or
Hawaii at maximum range—as the launch vehicle.
Washington and other critics say the satellite
launch was cover for a ballistic missile test, which was illegal
under UN resolutions.
Tokyo said the first booster stage was believed
to have dropped west of Japan and the second stage into the Pacific
Ocean.
South Korea said that it was too early to say
whether a satellite was launched, although one expert said it
probably was.
“Judging from the trajectory, the rocket was
apparently used to put a satellite into orbit as the North has
claimed,” said Baek Seung Joo of the Korea Institute for Defense
Analyses.
“Today’s launch should be called a success,
especially when we compare it with the 2006 test,” he told Agence
France-Presse. he first Taepodong-2 test in July 2006 failed after
40 seconds when the rocket blew up.
“This is a big step forward for the North’s
missile technology,” Baek said. It will certainly help attract
foreign customers who want to buy its missiles,” Baek said.
In comments before the launch, Christian Le
Miere, Jane’s Intelligence Review editor, said that a successful
three-stage launch would be “a major step forward”—the first
demonstration that the North can develop an inter-continental
missile.
But Le Miere told Agence France-Presse-TV, the
launch would not show that the North can deliver a warhead on top of
the rocket.
Expert David Wright, in an article in The
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, said a successful satellite launch
“wouldn’t necessarily demonstrate the ability to launch a
nuclear warhead to intercontinental range.
“Modifications to increase the capability of
the launcher pose both material and manufacturing challenges that
North Korea may have yet to overcome,” he added.
The International Crisis Group (ICG), in a
report last week, said even a successful test-launch would only
slightly heighten security risks.
The Brussels-based group urged the world not to
overreact, saying any “overblown” response could wreck nuclear
disarmament talks and strengthen hardliners in Pyongyang.
It said that the Taepodong-2 missile does not
pose a significantly increased risk to Japan, since the North’s
tested and apparently reliable Rodong missile can already carry a
nuclear warhead as far as Tokyo.
The report quoted intelligence sources as saying
such warheads are believed to have been assembled for the Rodong.
“The Taepodong-2 could possibly reach Alaska
but the likelihood of such a strike is negligible, since the North
knows it would be devastated in any response,” the ICG said.
“The launch of a Taepodong-2 also takes weeks
to prepare; in a time of considerable tensions the missile could be
destroyed on the [launch] pad,” it added.
Local experts said last week the launch was
likely to succeed due to technical cooperation with Iran, which
launched its own communications satellite on February 2 with a
domestically-made rocket.
“Reckless” rocket launch
Seoul Korea also on Sunday denounced the launch
as a reckless and provocative threat to world security, saying the
communist state should have used the money to feed its hungry
people.
It said the launch “clearly violates” a UN
resolution banning the North’s ballistic missile tests and vowed
unspecified countermeasures.
“The government cannot but express
disappointment and regret over North Korea’s reckless act of
firing a long-range rocket, which poses a serious threat to security
on the Korean peninsula and the world, presidential spokesman Lee
Dong Kwan said.
“The government will deal firmly and
resolutely with North Korea’s provocative act,” he added.
-- AFP
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