US plays down talk of North Korea quarantine

WASHINGTON - United States officials have played down a report that the administration might seek a United Nations resolution empowering nations to intercept shipments in and out of North Korea that may contain nuclear-related materials.

While acknowledging there may be some discussion of such a move, they said no proposal has been presented to senior policymakers, nor was there a decision to formally bring the issue of North Korea's nuclear programmes to the UN Security Council.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters travelling with her to Latin America that the United States' main way of dealing with North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons was through six-party talks aimed at dismantling their programmes. But she said: "We reserve the right to go to the United Nations Security Council at any time."

The New York Times, quoting senior US officials and diplomats briefed on the proposal, said the possible resolution would amount to a quarantine of North Korea, although it said White House aides were not using that word.

The purpose would be to provide political cover for China to police its border with North Korea, the newspaper said.

"Maybe there is somebody who's thinking about what's described in that article (but) nothing has come up to the senior policymaker level," one US official said.

China supplies 60 per cent of North Korea's food and oil. The border is also open to North Korean arms, drugs and counterfeit currency flows, providing Pyongyang with hard currency.

Signalling dwindling patience, Washington has said it would go to the security council for possible sanctions if Pyongyang continued to snub six-party nuclear talks.

Efforts to get the security council to authorise a quarantine likely would run into serious opposition from veto-wielding members Russia and China, which is alarmed at possibly forcing a North Korean collapse.

There is already a mechanism in place to pressure North Korea. Several years ago, Washington launched the so-called Proliferation Security Initiative, a voluntary association of states who agree to interdict weapons of mass destruction or components shipped from North Korea or other countries of concern.

It was specifically designed so participating states could act under existing laws and not require special UN authorisation, although some members might insist on security council approval for something so co-ordinated as a quarantine.

US officials said a quarantine may be among the ideas discussed by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the new US point man on North Korea, on a trip to Asia this week.

Washington wants China to put more pressure on North Korea to return to the six-party talks, stalled since last June.

"Hill has a few aces up his sleeve. He's sounding out possibilities," one US official said.

Meanwhile, nuclear expert David Kay fanned growing concerns about North Korea, saying he expects the reclusive communist state to detonate an atomic test by June 15.

"I unfortunately happen to believe that by the 15th of June, we will have a North Korean test of a nuclear weapon," he told the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars after returning from a trip to China.

US officials told Reuters they remained alert to what appears to be North Korean test preparations but could not substantiate the date Kay cited, the fifth anniversary of a North-South Korea declaration to work toward unification.

"The North Koreans have been doing things that lend themselves to speculation but in terms of a test, there's movement, but I don't think anybody has concluded that this is what they are going to do, without reservations on that judgment," one US official said.

Kay, once a CIA adviser heading the postwar US-led hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, declined to elaborate on his prediction.

Although North Korea has publicly announced it possessed nuclear weapons, officials and experts say an actual test would be a dramatic new step that would increase pressure on the United States for some counteraction.

- REUTERS