US concerned as North Korea drops pivotal pact

12:00pm

SEOUL - Stepping up its nuclear brinkmanship, North Korea on Friday (Saturday NZT) withdrew from the pivotal treaty to prevent the global spread of atomic weapons and the United States acknowledged the move was cause for concern, but said it was not unexpected.

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency watchdog sought to reassure worried governments that it did not see North Korea's decision to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as raising the stakes in the crisis and felt there was still room for diplomacy to work.

Making the announcement Pyongyang blamed what it called Washington's "hostile" policy toward North Korea, but said it had no intention of developing nuclear weapons.

"North Korea has thumbed its nose at the international community," said US Secretary of State Colin Powell, while insisting that Washington would maintain a diplomatic approach. "We're not going to be intimidated, we're not going to be put into a panic situation."

But Powell and Mohammed ElBaradei, the IAEA director-general, signalled that they were in no hurry for the UN Security Council to take up the matter.

"It will ultimately have to go to the Security Council. When and through what process and what one would ask the Security Council to do at that time remains to be determined," Powell said after talks with ElBaradei in Washington.

North Korea's move was not unexpected but it threatened to undermine decades of non-proliferation efforts and "only further isolate the regime," said US Vice President Dick Cheney.

The secretive Stalinist state has had the world on tenterhooks since expelling UN nuclear inspectors last week. But tensions have been rising on the divided Korean peninsula since Pyongyang admitted to a visiting US diplomat in October that it had been pursuing a nuclear arms programme in violation of a 1994 agreement.

They were heightened this month when North Korea disabled UN nuclear monitoring equipment and threatened to reactivate a nuclear plant capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.

At a rare news conference at the United Nations, North Korea's UN ambassador Pak Gil Yon, said on Friday the US offer earlier this week to hold talks on his country's nuclear programme without being willing to engage in full negotiations showed a lack of sincerity.

Pak also rejected negotiating with the IAEA, the global agency in charge of monitoring the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which he dismissed as "a tool" of the US government.

He made plain that Pyongyang would view it as a declaration of war if the UN Security Council were to impose economic sanctions against it.

The IAEA chief called on North Korea to rethink its decision to pull out of the treaty.

"I strongly urge the DPRK (North Korea) to reverse its decision and to seek a diplomatic solution," he said. "A challenge to the integrity of that treaty may constitute a threat to international peace and security."

Pyongyang has consistently rejected the IAEA's demand that it readmit weapons inspectors and restore UN surveillance cameras at the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, which are capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.

South Korea, technically still at war with the North, said the withdrawal was "a serious threat to peace" and urged Pyongyang to reverse the decision.

In a telephone conversation with President Jiang Zemin of China, US President George W Bush "stressed that the United States has no hostile intentions toward North Korea, and sought a peaceful, multilateral solution to the problem created by Pyongyang's action," a White House spokesman said.

US officials have said China, North Korea's closest ally, could do more to pressure Pyongyang. But after the telephone call White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said only: "The two presidents agreed to continue to work together to help ensure peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula."

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, visiting Russia, also demanded North Korea reverse its decision. Moscow, one of North Korea's few remaining friends, voiced alarm but said it was hopeful the crisis could be resolved.

In New Mexico, former UN ambassador Richardson -- now the state's governor -- held a second day of talks with a North Korean delegation and two more North Korean diplomats were sent to join the two already involved in the discussions.

Richardson said the talks were "going well" and would continue into Friday afternoon.

Richardson, a Democrat, has a history of negotiation with the North Koreans that includes brokering the 1994 release of a US soldier whose helicopter crashed in North Korea and the freeing in 1996 of a young US citizen held on spy charges.

US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly is due in Seoul Sunday and Japan's foreign minister visits three days later.

Diplomatic sources with close ties to Pyongyang told Reuters in Tokyo that North Korea would agree to scrap its weapons plans if Washington reaffirmed a 2000 joint communique that declared the two nations had "no hostile intention" toward each other.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: North Korea