MOSCOW. Feb 13 (Interfax) - The international community has enough resources to return North Korea to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and make it accountable to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Russian Federation Council international affairs committee head Mikhail Margelov said.
"The testing of a compact nuclear device, which, according to DPRK reports, passed safely and in an excellent manner, caused legitimate condemnation by the UN and a number of capitals, including Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Beijing and London, as these tests increase tensions in the region," Margelov told Interfax.
Margelov suggested that new sanctions might be imposed on North Korea. "At the same time, it is reasonable to think that the international community possesses political and economic methods that could return the DPRK to the Non-Proliferation Treaty regime and back under IAEA monitoring. If this is not done, the spread of nuclear weapons will become uncontrollable, which, taking into account the temperament of possible unwanted members of the nuclear club, may have unpredictable consequences," he said.
About two dozen intergovernmental disputes remain unsettled in this region, and the concentration of nuclear weapons in the Asia-Pacific region possessed by Russia, the U.S., China, and North Korea, plus Pakistan and India, which are geopolitically close to this region, makes the situation especially dangerous, he said.
"It is clear that the test of such a weapon by Pyongyang, whose politics are chiefly aimed at challenging the international community, could prompt the DPRK's economically more powerful neighbors, Japan and South Korea, to create their own nuclear bomb. And besides, other countries in the region could also obtain such a weapon now," Margelov said.
It should also be taken into consideration that the Asia-Pacific region is a new geopolitical center, where interests of a lot of influential players intertwine, Margelov said. "The start of an arms race in the countries neighboring the DPRK is also possible, especially considering that there is a pretext for this. Neither can change the situation. Sanctions do not stop nuclear ambitions. Pyongyang has already driven itself into absolute international isolation, and the demonstration of strength could only lead to growing tensions in the region fraught with its destabilization," he said.