In this April 5, 2009 image made from KRT video, a rocket is lifted off from its launch pad in Musudan-ri, North Korea. As international tensions rise over a planned North Korean rocket launch, the U.N. nuclear agency is taking a wait and see attitude on an offer from the North to allow agency experts back into the country, according to a letter shared Tuesday, April 3, 2012 with The Associated Press. In the March 30 letter, circulated internally among the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35 member nations, IAEA head Yukiya Amano expresses thanks for the March 16 overture by North Korean Atomic Energy head Ri Je Son and says "the IAEA will follow up on your invitation in a constructive spirit." (AP Photo/KRT via AP Video, File) NORTH KOREA OUT, TV OUT
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday warned North Korea that its “old pattern of provocation” was over and insisted that the United States would not buy “good behavior” from the communist state.
Obama was speaking at a joint news conference with Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who warned of a “great possibility” that North Korea would carry out a nuclear test after its failed April 13 rocket launch.
Obama, whose administration sealed a now-moribund deal with North Korea in February after initial hesitation, said that he would no longer follow a pattern of seeking to reward North Korea for changing its ways.
“What I’ve tried to do since I came into office (is) to make sure that North Koreans understand that the old pattern of provocation that then gets attention and somehow insists on the world purchasing good behavior from them, that that pattern is broken,” Obama said.
Obama said that the United States along with allies Japan and South Korea were united that North Korea “abide by international norms, that they will not be able to purchase anything from further provocative acts.”
While Obama said that he did not want to speculate on further actions by North Korea, Noda noted that the regime carried out its last nuclear test in 2009 amid the uproar over what foreign governments call a missile test.
“That means that there is a great possibility that they will conduct a nuclear test,” Noda said.
North Korea has voiced anger over the international reaction to its February 29 test, which it said was an unsuccessful effort to put a satellite into orbit.
The United States and its allies believe that the launch was a disguised test of a long-range missile.