UN warns N Korea against nuclear weapon test

UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council today urged North Korea not to carry out a planned nuclear-weapon test and warned Pyongyang of unspecified consequences if it did.

The warning, in a unanimously adopted statement, was made three days after North Korea's announced it planned its first underground nuclear test, saying its hand had been forced by a US "threat of nuclear war and sanctions."

US officials have said the secretive state might detonate a device as early as this weekend, and a Chinese source said Pyongyang planned to carry out the test deep inside an abandoned mine.

A nuclear test would "jeopardize peace, stability and security in the region and beyond" and "bring universal condemnation by the international community," said the Security Council statement, read by Japan's UN Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, this month's council president.

It warned North Korea that a nuclear test would lead to further unspecified Security Council action "consistent with its responsibility under the Charter of the United Nations."

Analysts say North Korea probably has enough fissile material to make six to eight nuclear bombs but probably does not have the technology to make one small enough to mount on a missile.

"We think the main point is that North Korea should understand how strongly the United States and other council members feel that they should not test this nuclear device," US Ambassador John Bolton told reporters before the council statement was adopted.

"And if they do test it, it will be a very different world a day after the test," Bolton said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, making his first reported public appearance since the Wednesday announcement, held a meeting to rally army commanders today.

But North Korea's official KCNA news agency did not mention preparations for a nuclear test in its report, which said Kim was welcomed "with stormy cheers of hurrah."

The soldiers shouted: "Let's fight at the cost of our lives for the respected supreme commander comrade Kim Jong-il."

Oshima, who drew up the statement, said it "clearly indicated there will be consequences of their action" if North Korea conducted a test.

Oshima said he was pleased the statement came before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's planned visit to Beijing on Sunday and Seoul on Tuesday to press for North Korea to scrap testing plans.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said a nuclear test would be a provocation and that the United States encouraged China and "all other countries in the region that have influence on North Korea to use it to convince them to turn away from this."

The council statement urged Pyongyang to return immediately to six-party talks. The two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have held talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme, but North Korea walked out of them a year ago and refuses to return until Washington ends a financial squeeze.

North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun daily, quoted by KCNA today, said it was time for non-aligned and developing countries to establish a new and fair international financial system.

Three senior US officials with access to intelligence told Reuters that US speculation about a possible test centred on Monday, the anniversary of when Kim became head of the national defence commission in 1997.

They said Pyongyang, which has in the past timed bold actions and announcements to coincide with significant dates, could choose Tuesday, North Korea Workers' Party Day as well as the US holiday for explorer Christopher Columbus.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso was circumspect on the timing, however, saying he did not sense tension was mounting.

"Unlike a rocket, we can't see it, so there is nothing we can say," Aso told reporters in Tokyo.

Missile tests by North Korea in July were widely anticipated because satellite pictures showed them being prepared for launch.

A Chinese source briefed by Pyongyang said North Korea planned to conduct its test about 2000 metres underground in an abandoned coal mine in the north of the country.

"They are more or less ready," the source told Reuters after speaking to North Korean officials. He did not give a timetable.

In Washington, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said today she had no new information to disclose about whether a nuclear test was being planned.

- REUTERS