President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spoke by telephone on implementing nuclear sanctions against North Korea, the White House said Wednesday. Obama and Rudd, who met in Washington in March, spoke amid growing expectations that Pyongyang will conduct another provocative missile test and as the U.S. Navy tracks a North Korean ship suspected of carrying missile parts to Southeast Asia. The two leaders “discussed the North Korea nuclear issue, including ways in which the United States and Australia can work together to ensure full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874,” the White House said in a statement. “They noted their upcoming July travel to Italy, where they will see each other at the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, and discussed ways to cooperate on the forum's issues,” the statement said. The Security Council resolution, imposed this month in response to Pyongyang's second nuclear test, restricts North Korean financial transactions and attempts to proliferate weapons of mass destruction. A North Korean ship being tracked by the U.S. Navy is believed to be heading to Myanmar, U.S. defense officials said this week. The Kang Nam 1 is the first North Korean ship to be monitored since the adoption of the U.N. resolution.
