* North Korea space agency will now be blacklisted
* Council warns North against new nuclear test
* China says sanctions alone don't work, more diplomacy
needed
* Pyongyang continues work on nuclear test site, test seen
some way off
(Adds U.S. envoy comments, paragraphs 7-8, Russian comment,
paragraph 10)
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 23 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council
unanimously condemned North Korea's December rocket launch and
expanded existing U.N. sanctions, and Pyongyang reacted with a
vow to boost the North's military and nuclear capabilities.
While the resolution approved by the 15-nation council on
Tuesday does not impose new sanctions on Pyongyang, diplomats
said Beijing's support for it was a significant diplomatic blow
to Pyongyang.
The resolution said the council "deplores the violations" by
North Korea of its previous resolutions, which banned Pyongyang
from conducting further ballistic missile and nuclear tests and
from importing materials and technology for those programs.
It also said the council "expresses its determination to
take significant action in the event of a further DPRK (North
Korean) launch or nuclear test".
North Korea reacted quickly, saying it would hold no more
talks on the de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula and would
boost its military and nuclear capabilities.
"We will take measures to boost and strengthen our defensive
military power including nuclear deterrence," its Foreign
Ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA.
The United States' special envoy on North Korea, arriving in
Seoul on Wednesday to meet his South Korean counterparts, urged
Pyongyang to back down from further provocative actions but left
the door open for dialogue.
"If they can... begin to take concrete steps to indicate
their interests in returning to diplomacy, they may find willing
partners in that process," Glyn Davies told reporters.
Six-party talks aimed at halting North Korea's nuclear
program have involved North Korea, the United States, China,
Japan, Russia and South Korea. They have been held
intermittently since 2003 but have stalled since 2008.
Russia's foreign minister said on Wednesday that North Korea
should pay heed to the international community and adhere to
limits on its missile and nuclear programmes.
South Korea says the North is technically ready for a third
nuclear test, and satellite images show it is actively working
on its nuclear site. However, political analysts said they
viewed a test as unlikely in the near-term.
"North Korea will likely take a sequenced strategy where the
first stage response would be more militarily aggressive actions
like another missile launch," said Yang Moo-jin of the
University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
There are concerns that North Korea could stage a test using
highly enriched uranium for the first time, which would give it
a second path to a nuclear bomb and enable it to preserve its
stocks of plutonium, which are believed to be sufficient for
about 12 nuclear devices.
The U.N. resolution added six North Korean entities,
including Pyongyang's space agency, the Korean Committee for
Space Technology, and the man heading it, Paek Chang-ho, to an
existing U.N. blacklist.
BLACKLISTED
The firms and individuals will all face an international
asset freeze, while Paek and the others blacklisted by Tuesday's
resolution -- the manager of the rocket launch center and two
North Korean banking officials -- will face a global travel ban.
In addition to the space agency, the council blacklisted the
Bank of East Land, Korea Kumryong Trading Corp., Tosong
Technology Trading Corp., Korea Ryonha Machinery Joint Venture
Corp., and Leader (Hong Kong) International.
Leader, based in Hong Kong, is an agent for KOMID, a North
Korean mining and trading company that was sanctioned in 2009
and is the North's main arms dealer, the resolution said.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice welcomed
the resolution, describing it as introducing "new sanctions"
against North Korea. "This resolution demonstrates to North
Korea that there are unanimous and significant consequences for
its flagrant violation of its obligations under previous
resolutions," she said.
Other diplomats, however, said on condition of anonymity
that describing the measures in Tuesday's resolution were new
sanctions would be an exaggeration.
China, the North's only major diplomatic ally, said on
Monday the Security Council needed to pass a cautious resolution
on North Korea, adding that this was the best way to ensure
regional tensions did not escalate further.
Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong said certain elements in the
resolution's original draft, which in China's view would
"jeopardize" normal trade between North Korea and other
countries, had been removed, the official Xinhua news agency
reported.
"Sanctions and resolutions alone do not work," Xinhua quoted
him as saying. "Resolutions must be completed and supplemented
by diplomatic efforts."
Several diplomats said Beijing's decision to back the
resolution sent a strong message to Pyongyang.
"It might not be much, but the Chinese move is significant,"
a council diplomat told Reuters. "The prospect of a (new)
nuclear test might have been a game changer (for China)."
The United States had wanted to punish North Korea for the
rocket launch with a Security Council resolution that imposed
entirely new sanctions against Pyongyang, but Beijing rejected
that option. China agreed to U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang
after North Korea's 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.
December's successful long-range rocket launch, the first to
put a satellite in orbit, was a coup for North Korea's young
leader, Kim Jong-un.
North and South Korea are still technically at war because
their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty.
(Additional reporting by Jumin Park, David Chance and Jack Kim
in SEOUL, and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Raju
Gopalakrishnan)