US gives North Korea stark warning

WASHINGTON - The United States in its starkest warning so far said today it would not live with a nuclear-armed North Korea, while Japan and other neighbours hardened their responses after the reclusive state announced it planned a nuclear test.

"We are not going to live with a nuclear North Korea, we are not going to accept it," US Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill said. He warned Pyongyang that "it can have a future or it can have these weapons. It cannot have both."

Hill spoke after a US defence official said the United States had detected activity at potential test sites in North Korea, indicating possible preparations for a nuclear test. North Korea, which has said it has nuclear bombs, yesterday said it would conduct its first nuclear test.

Hill refused to say what steps Washington might take to see that North Korea did not succeed in testing a weapon. But he said: "We will do all we can to dissuade the DPRK from this test."

"We would have no choice but to act resolutely to make sure that the DPRK understood -- and to make sure that any other country understands -- that this (nuclear test) is a very bad mistake," Hill told the US-Korea Institute, which is part of the Johns Hopkins University.

The US defence official who spoke about signs of activity at potential North Korea test sites and declined to be identified said the evidence was not definitive. He noted that because the North Koreans have never conducted a nuclear test, "we don't really know what we're looking for."

At the United Nations, Japan pushed for a Security Council warning that if North Korea went ahead with a test, the council would impose consequences, although it did not specify what those should be.

US Ambassador John Bolton said that while Japan, Britain and France made clear a strong statement was needed, he was not certain "what North Korea's protectors" on the 15-member council would do.

In response, China's UN Ambassador Wang Guangya said, "I'm not sure which country he is referring to, but I think that for bad behaviour in this world no one is going to protect them (North Korea)."

The Foreign Ministry of China, the closest North Korea has to an ally, called for restraint on North Korea's part and for other countries to avoid actions that would heighten tensions.

"We hope that North Korea will exercise necessary calm and restraint over the nuclear test issue," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a short statement on the ministry's website www.fmprc.gov.cn.

Russia's and South Korea's foreign ministers denounced as "unacceptable" Pyongyang's plan for a test, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. It said Russia's Sergei Lavrov and South Korea's Ban Ki-moon discussed the North Korean situation by telephone.

The United States, France and Japan all have pressed for the issue to be dealt with at the United Nations. But Beijing wants it resolved through six-country talks set up to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

North Korea has snubbed those talks -- involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States -- for almost a year.

Pyongyang has refused to return until the United States ends a crackdown on North Korean offshore bank accounts, which Washington says is aimed at ending suspected illicit activities and has nothing to do with the six-party process.

Analysts and officials said Pyongyang's nuclear test announcement yesterday could be an attempt to push the United States into direct talks about ending the crackdown.

South Korea's Unification Minister, Lee Jong-seok, said he saw a strong element of trying to apply pressure on the United States. "In the event efforts to resume the six-party talks break down, the possibility of a North Korean nuclear test is high," Lee told a parliamentary committee.

Analysts say North Korea probably could make a nuclear weapon but lacks the technology to make it small enough to fit on a missile. They also note that in its July test that defied international warnings, North Korea's long-range missile fizzled just after take-off.

The Stalinist state argues that its hand has been forced by what a North Korean diplomat called Washington's "proclamation of war" by threatening economic sanctions.

"These kinds of threats of nuclear war and tensions and pressure by the United States compel us to conduct a nuclear test," North Korean embassy spokesman Pak Myong Guk told Reuters in Canberra. "Now the situation around the Korean peninsula is very tense," Pak said. "It may be breaking out (in) a war at any time, I think."

- REUTERS