UNITED NATIONS
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asked North Korea to stop nuclear tests.
Ban told reporters that North Korea should pay attention to calls of international community and abide by the resolutions of UN Security Council.
This would be for the interest of North Korean people, said Ban, and reminded that it was an obligation for all member states to abide by the resolutions of Security Council.
Initiatives for the normalization of relations between North and South Korea would have to be delayed due to nuclear tests, he added.
North Korea announced last month that it would conduct a nuclear test to protest UN Security Council sanctions which were toughened after a satellite launch in December that the US and others say was a disguised test of banned missile technology. The Council ordered North Korea in the sanctions resolution to refrain from a nuclear test or face "significant action."
UN head criticizes Syrian president
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has strongly criticised Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and said that nothing would justify killing civilians.
Ban told reporters on Thursday that differences of opinion in Syria as well as in UN Security Council were preventing a solution to Syria problem.
There would not be a hope for solution before those differences were eliminated, he added.
Ban said that Syria crisis didn't start because of terrorism, but it started because Assad used violence against his own people who did not use violence while protesting the government.
