The presumptive Republican nominee for president was quick Thursday to use North Korea’s rocket launch to attack his potential rival President Barack Obama.

Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, also condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the North‘s act although it was unsuccessful.

“Pyongyang’s action is another blatant violation of unanimous U.N. Security Council resolutions and demonstrates once again that Pyongyang is committed to developing long-range missiles with the potential of carrying nuclear weapons,” he said in an emailed statement.

Romney, widely expected to win the Republican race to pick its presidential candidate, accused Obama of having no effective response to the North Korean problem.

He said the president sought to “appease the regime with a food-aid deal that proved to be as naive as it was short-lived.”

He was referring to a Feb. 29 deal under which Washington promised to deliver 240,000 tons of food assistance to the North in exchange for a moratorium on missile launches and some nuclear activities.

Romney criticized the government for scaling down missile defense programs for defense budget cuts.

“This incompetence from the Obama Administration has emboldened the North Korean regime and undermined the security of the United States and our allies,” he said. (Yonhap News)