The likely next head of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee urged President Barack Obama to push for tougher action against North Korea at a Group of 20 summit opening Thursday.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican who stands to take over in January after her party won the House of Representatives, said the United States must act "quickly and firmly" to stop weapons proliferation from North Korea.
"Instead of continuing its failed strategy of seeking to engage the regime in endless negotiation, the administration must ratchet up pressure on Pyongyang," Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement Wednesday.
"At the upcoming G20 summit in Seoul, President Obama must persuade the heads of state to call for the imposition of new and effective UN Security Council sanctions on North Korea," she said.
Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American from Florida, is a passionate critic of communist regimes.
She reiterated her call for Washington to reclassify North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. George W. Bush removed Pyongyang from the blacklist late in his presidency as he pressed for a diplomatic breakthrough.
The Obama administration has pursued dialogue with US adversaries but has held off on substantive talks with North Korea, insisting it first comply with a 2005 six-nation statement under which it would end its nuclear program in return for aid.
North Korea last year renounced the talks and tested a second nuclear bomb, although it later said it was willing to return to the table if the United States recognized it as a nuclear power.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
