Rice counters fear of nuclear arms race

Condoleezza Rice

TOKYO - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reassured Japan today that Washington would stand by a commitment to protect its Asian ally and tried to temper concerns of an Asian nuclear arms race after North Korea's nuclear test.

"The United States has the will and the capability to meet the full range, and I underscore full range, of its deterrent and security commitments to Japan," Rice told a news conference in Tokyo, the first stop on a tour of North Asia.

The United States is worried Japan and South Korea might embark on an arms build-up in response to North Korea developing a nuclear arsenal.

"That is why it is extremely important to go out and reaffirm, and reaffirm strongly, US defence commitments to Japan and to South Korea," Rice told reporters travelling with her. Referring to an arms race, she said: "We have a lot of means to prevent that from happening."

Germany also warned that North Korea's underground test of a nuclear device on October 9 and Iran's refusal to rein in its nuclear program could spark regional arms races.

"Both of these provocations can awaken the desire for nuclear weapons among their neighbours. We must prevent this, which is why we're not at the end of this conflict but at the beginning," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the German weekly magazine Stern.

Germany, France and Britain are drafting a UN Security Council resolution this week that would impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment programme. Tehran says the program is for producing electricity.

Rice will head from Japan to Seoul and Beijing, seeking a unified stance on UN sanctions slapped on Pyongyang last Saturday for exploding a nuclear device.

She made her trip as intelligence experts said satellites had spotted a pick-up in activity at the North's suspected test site, suggesting a second blast may be imminent.

The US State Department today cast doubt on media reports North Korea's military had informed China it intended to carry out a series of underground nuclear tests.

"We certainly are in constant touch, I think, at various levels, with the Chinese. But we certainly haven't received any information from them, from the Chinese, that they've been told by Pyongyang that another test is imminent," department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.

Assistant US Secretary of State Christopher Hill acknowledged the possibility of further tests but said in an interview with National Public Radio's Morning Edition: "We do not have any indication that it's going to happen imminently."

Japan, a traditional target of Pyongyang's animosity, has seen debate increase over whether to acquire nuclear arms. But Foreign Minister Taro Aso reiterated Tokyo had "absolutely no intentions now of preparing to possess nuclear weapons."

"There is no need to have nuclear weapons as the Japan-US security framework will be activated for the defence of Japan," he said. "And Secretary Rice has just reconfirmed that."

Japan, the only country to have suffered from the effects of nuclear bombing, has long forsworn nuclear weapons.

Hill stressed the risk North Korea would run if it attacked a US ally. "I think North Korea needs to understand that when it attacks treaty allies of the United States it indeed risks very much being at war with the United States," he said.

Japan's Kyodo news agency reported from Beijing that Chinese State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan was in North Korea "on a mission believed to be aimed at resolving the stand-off."

A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Beijing said she could not confirm the report. Tang, a former foreign minister, visited Washington as President Hu Jintao's special envoy after North Korea's test.

"It makes sense that he'd go there before Rice arrives (in China)," said a Western diplomat in China, who asked not to be named. "But I'd worry he's going there as much to reassure the North Koreans as threaten them."

Rice goes to South Korea on Thursday and Beijing on Saturday to push for enforcement of sanctions agreed by the UN Security Council on Sunday, particularly the inspection of North Korean cargo to intercept weapons and weapons parts.

China, North Korea's biggest trading partner and the closest it has to an ally, backed the Council resolution.

- REUTERS