31 May 2009: Straits Times
By Shefali Rekhi, Assistant Foreign Editor
Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong Il sought global recognition of Pyongyang's ability to be a nuclear power with its nuclear and missile tests last week.
He got all that and more, with the United States and leading players in the Asia-Pacific warning yesterday of stern retaliation if the situation worsened.
Tensions in North-east Asia ramped up several notches last week after the series of tests by Pyongyang and an abrupt termination of the 1953 truce ending fighting in the Korean war.
Reports yesterday said North Korea was now proceeding to conduct a long-range missile test, perhaps in a couple of weeks, with potential to strike Alaska.
Ties with Japan and South Korea have also entered a rough patch.
Tokyo renewed and increased sanctions against Pyongyang last month after the communist country fired a rocket over Japan, which was seen as a bid to test its long-range missile technology.
And North Korea has been upset with its southern neighbour over its bid to join the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) - a US-led initiative to block or monitor shipments of biological, chemical or nuclear material, to and from rogue states and terrorist organisations. Seoul signed up as a core member of the grouping last week and Pyongyang has threatened to retaliate if there were attempts to stop its vessels.
But experts say that the worry about North Korea is not only what it could wield against its neighbours - it already possesses 800 short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, according to reports - but also its capability to transport weapons of mass destruction to nations seen as a threat to global peace.
'North Korea in the past has a track record of external transfers of missile technology to many countries and of nuclear cooperation with at least two - Syria and Libya,' said Mr Mark Fitzpatrick, Senior Fellow for non-proliferation, at the London-based think-tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which hosts the Shangri-La Dialogue.
'It may just be willing to share nuclear technology with any country that would be willing to buy it,' he told The Sunday Times.
