New York - The United Nations Security Council is expected as early as Monday to approve a statement that condemns North Korea's April 5 rocket launch and enforces U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang.
The draft statement calls for a list of "entities" -- shorthand for financial institutions and individuals -- eligible to have their assets frozen because of ties to the missile program. The Security Council has until April 30 to come up with the list.
North Korea had no reaction Sunday to news the Security Council was poised to act after the U.S. had reached a compromise on Saturday with Russia and China on a joint response to the launch. Pak Tok Hun, North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador, said last week that his government would take unspecified "strong steps" if the council acted against it.
Before the launch, Pyongyang had warned it would break off six-party talks on dismantling its nuclear-weapons program if the Security Council were to take action.
The U.S. and Japan initially sought a swifter and stronger Security Council resolution that would have imposed new sanctions on North Korea. But China and Russia said the launch was an attempt to put a satellite in orbit and feared that a harsh U.N. reaction would drive North Korea away from the six-party talks.
A division remained over the weekend over the legal interpretation of the statement. The U.S said it is legally binding, while other council members said only a resolution is, not a statement.
The draft statement, which calls the rocket launch a "contravention" of the U.N.'s ban on North Korea's ballistic-missile program, represents a climbdown for Moscow and Beijing, as it indirectly acknowledges that the launch wasn't aimed at putting a satellite in space.
"What the council can do, and we hope will do, through the adoption of this statement is to send a very clear message to North Korea that what they have done under the guise of a satellite launch is, in fact, a violation of their obligations and indeed that there are consequences for such actions," said U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice after a Security Council meeting Saturday.
The five veto-wielding permanent council members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S. -- plus Japan had been haggling for a week over a U.N. response. After those six nations agreed on the text, it was presented to the entire Security Council. Unlike a resolution, which requires a vote, a Security Council statement read by the council president in a formal session is agreed by consensus.
"It is a text which sends out, as we intended, a clear message to North Korea," said French ambassador to the U.N. Jean-Maurice Ripert.
The document demands North Korea conduct no further rocket launches. It calls on all U.N. member nations to comply fully with an embargo on conventional arms, and nuclear- and ballistic-missile parts, imposed on Pyongyang in October 2006 in response to its underground test of a nuclear weapon. Those sanctions, which also allowed for the assets of individuals and institutions linked to North Korea's nuclear and ballistic-missile programs to be frozen, were never implemented, in deference to the six-party nuclear talks.
The draft statement would give new force to a regime of inspecting cargo coming into and out of North Korea for contraband goods, Ms. Rice said. Additional military-related items could be added to the banned list, she said.
The statement says that the council supports the resumption of the six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan.
Ambassadors on the council were waiting Sunday for instructions from their capitals on whether to support the draft statement, which diplomats said was virtually assured after the major powers agreed.
