Word: pyongyang
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...launch as a fait accompli. U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy, Stephen Bosworth, has said that launch or no launch, Washington hoped to push on with talks aimed at getting the North to give up its nuclear weapons program - even hinting that the direct U.S.-North Korean talks Pyongyang has always wanted were possible. (See pictures of the rise of Kim Jong...
...launch complicates that diplomacy. Tokyo in particular is furious at Pyongyang - it had earlier in the week threatened to shoot the missile down - and immediately after the launch asked for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council to take place on Sunday. Both Tokyo and the South Korean government believe the rocket launch was an explicit violation of a 2006 U.N. resolution that insisted the North "not conduct any further nuclear test or launch of a ballistic missile." But North Korea insists it has the right to place communications satellites into orbit, and the U.S. military on Sunday confirmed...
...will agree to further sanctions. "The best [Seoul and Tokyo] can hope for is a statement from the Security Council that condemns the test," says Chol Jinwook, director of North Korean Studies at the Korean Institute for National Unification. (See pictures of the New York Philharmonic's performance in Pyongyang...
...Though the Taeodong II does not have the range to hit the continental United States, and the North has not yet mastered the technology to miniaturize a nuclear warhead that could fit on the rocket, the launch is, as Obama said, a "provocative act." To be seen as rewarding Pyongyang by engaging in direct talks is, for now, unlikely...
...best Obama can hope for now is to get North Korea to return to the six-party talks (hosted by Beijing and including South Korea, Japan and Russia.) Washington has tried to signal Pyongyang in advance of the launch that it was still interested in talking, "because," says one Western diplomat, "the big picture remains the same, missile or no missile: getting them to abandon their nuclear weapons program...