North Korea's successful rocket launch poses a fresh quandary for the United States, underscoring how its "shame and sanction" approach to Pyongyang has failed to stop the country's dangerous advances in both nuclear and missile technology, analysts and officials said on Wednesday.
The Obama administration has condemned Wednesday's launch as a "highly provocative act" for which there would be "consequences" and has began working at the U.N. Security Council on steps which could broaden existing sanctions on North Korea – already the most isolated country in the world.
Officials say the immediate U.S. task is to try to win stronger support fromChina – North Korea's lone major ally—for enforcing existing sanctions and potentially agreeing to new steps such as adding more entities to the U.N. blacklist, banning travel and freezing assets of individual North Korean officials, and tightening of a cargo-inspection regime.
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