North Korean N-test challenge to US; get China onboard:experts

 A nuclear test conducted by North Korea poses challenge to the US administration led by Barack Obama, who has to get China onboard to defuse the situation, experts here said today.     

"Unless Obama takes very tough steps and gets China onboard, the situation in north east Asia will deteriorate," former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra told PTI.     

He said the second and more powerful nuclear test by North Korea will increase tensions in north east Asia.Former diplomat G Parthasarathy said the nuclear tests indicate that attempts to isolate North Korea will not work.     

He said the US had got the United Nations to condemn the missile test by North Korea last month which may have angered the Stalinist nation.Analyst C Uday Bhaskar said the fact that the nuclear test has sent Japan and South Korea in a scramble mode is an indication that it is a challenge to the Obama administration.     

He said the nuclear dynamics in the Asian region has become complex after the North Korean nuclear test and role of China will be crucial.Parthasarathy, a former High Commissioner to Pakistan, said the North Korean issue has to be resolved within the framework of the six-party talks of which China is a member.     

The other members are Japan, Russia, the US, South Korea and North Korea. The six-party framework was set up to find a peaceful resolution of the security concerns arising out of the North Korean nuclear programme.     

He pointed out that North Korea had recently agreed to dismantle its nuclear programme. Mishra said the nuclear test has negated all attempts to get North Korea dismantle its nuclear weapons.     

North Korea said it had carried out a second and more powerful nuclear test despite international pressure to rein in its nuclear programmes after years of disarmament talks. The communist state, which stunned the world by testing an atomic bomb for the first time in October 2006, had threatened another test after the UN Security Council censured it following a long-range rocket launch in April.