Warning the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from its door step, US President Barack Obama said Pyongyang risks deepening its isolation if it proceeds with a planned long-range rocket launch. "(The DPRK) will achieve nothing by threats or provocations," Obama said during a news conference on Sunday in Seoul, where he was to attend a nuclear security summit. Obama spoke fresh off his first visit to the tense Demilitarized Zone, the heavily patrolled no-man's land between the DPRK and the Republic of Korea, where he peered long and hard at the DPRK. From the DMZ, Obama returned to Seoul for a private meeting with ROK President Lee Myung-bak. Both leaders warned there would be consequences if the DPRK proceeds with its plans to launch a satellite using a long-range rocket next month, a move the US and other powers say would violate a UN ban on nuclear and missile activity because the same technology could be used for long-range missiles. Obama said the launch would jeopardize a deal for the US to resume stalled food aid to the DRPK and may result in the tightening of harsh economic sanctions on the country. The DPRK walked away from the Six-Party Talks in 2009, which group the US, China, Russia, Japan, the ROK and the DPRK. Years of negotiations had succeeded in ending part of the DPRK's nuclear program but failed in stopping it from building and testing nuclear devices and long-range missiles. |