N. Korea Links Next Move to U.S. Policy

SEOUL The No. 2 leader of North Korea said Wednesday that his government might conduct more nuclear tests if Washington continued its "hostile attitude," while the United States warned of sanctions "unlike anything" the North Koreans had faced before.

The threat from Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the North's legislature, the Supreme People's Assembly, comes as the United States is racing at the United Nations to impose global sanctions against the North.

"The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to U.S. policy toward our country," Kim, who is second to leader Kim Jong Il, said in an interview with the Japanese news agency Kyodo in Pyongyang. "If the United States continues to take a hostile attitude and apply pressure on us in various forms, we will have no choice but to take physical steps to deal with that."

The North's Foreign Ministry issued a similar threat Wednesday. "If the U.S. keeps pestering us and increases pressure, we will regard it as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical corresponding measures," the ministry said Wednesday in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. It did not specify what those measures could be.

In Seoul, President Roh Moo Hyun told South Koreans to brace themselves for a "prolonged" confrontation over the crisis triggered by North Korea's claim on Monday that it had conducted an underground nuclear test.

On Wednesday night, Japan moved to punish North Korea by prohibiting North Korean ships from entering Japanese ports and imposing a ban on imports from North Korea. Japan also imposed severe restrictions on entry into the country by North Korean nationals.

Japan mainly imports fish, coal and mushrooms from North Korea. As Japan slapped trade restrictions on North Korea in recent years, ranging from blacklisting North Korean banks to curtailing port entry of North Korean ships, bilateral commerce tumbled 85 percent from 2001 to $195 million last year.

Although there is doubt about the effectiveness of sanctions on the already isolated country, North Korea received a painful blow on Tuesday when China, its most important ally and aid provider, supported strong measures against Pyongyang. "For China, we need to have a firm, constructive, appropriate, but prudent, response," said Wang Guangya, the country's ambassador to the United Nations. "There have to be some punitive actions."

But Wang ruled out military force and cautioned that the punishments might not necessarily be the harsh ones that Washington and Tokyo were proposing. "I think these actions have to be appropriate," he said.

In an interview on CNN, in one of a series of television appearances, the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, stressed that "the diplomatic path is open" for the North, and that giving up its nuclear program would "lead to all kinds of benefits for North Korea."

But Rice said the North's decision to pursue its nuclear program meant it would face "international condemnation and international sanctions unlike anything that they have faced before."

The United States, Britain and France all want a resolution drafted under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which makes sanctions mandatory and poses the possibility of military enforcement as a last resort.

While both China and Russia have spoken of the importance of taking serious action against North Korea's apparent nuclear test, they are traditionally against invoking Chapter 7 and have not indicated whether they would withdraw their opposition this time.

Sanctions sought by the United States include international inspections of all cargo moving in and out of North Korea to detect weapons-related material. But that proposal may prove difficult for China and Russia to accept, in part because their coastlines and borders would be affected by such an operation.

The Bush administration is pressing for an agreement on sanctions this week. But even as the administration sought to push tough language into a Security Council resolution, the White House expressed doubts about the capability of North Korea's nuclear program, based on evidence that its apparent nuclear test yielded a smaller than expected yield.

"What we detected was clearly an explosion of limited size," Defense Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie of France told Europe 1 radio, according to Reuters. "Today, given its weak power, it is hard to say if it was a very large, but traditional, type of explosion or else a nuclear explosion.

"If it was a nuclear explosion, it was a failed explosion," she said.

Japan, the United States and South Korea were still trying to verify if the test was a genuine nuclear blast.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan said, "Even if it's a failure, that means they attempted to conduct a nuclear test."

The regional jitters were reflected Wednesday when the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, said he had "very real concerns" that North Korea may conduct another nuclear test very soon.

The United States has imposed economic curbs on North Korea since the opening of the Korean War in 1950, though President Clinton lifted a few of them toward the end of his time in office, when relations seemed to be thawing.

Now, in its bid to tighten sanctions, Bush administration officials say the United States is pursuing a two-track approach: trying at the United Nations to persuade other countries to cut off economic ties with the North, and using U.S. banking laws to punish banks overseas that deal with North Korean companies.

In Seoul, Roh called the North Korean claim that it had built nuclear weapons because of U.S. threats a "gross exaggeration."

"The threat to security the North Koreans are talking about is either nonexistent or a gross exaggeration," Roh said. "It's unclear whether the North Koreans are deliberately exaggerating the threat or they are ignorant."

In television interviews and briefings for reporters, Rice and other Bush administration officials repeated past assurances that the United States was not moving toward occupying North Korea or toppling its government.

"The United States of America doesn't have any intention to attack North Korea or to invade North Korea," she said. "The president never takes any of his options off the table. But is the United States somehow in a provocative way trying to invade North Korea? It's just not the case."

She said the administration's policy was to work through a multilateral diplomatic path and stalled six-party talks, and not the two-way dialogue that North Korea has sought with the United States.

In the Bush administration's quest for tough sanctions, much of the effort is focused on China, Japan and especially South Korea, which supply most of North Korea's imports and investments. South Korea has invested heavily in the Kaesong Industrial Park, an economic enclave in the North that employs thousands of workers in factories that produce shoes, cosmetics and other export goods.

The United States has tried, without much success, to get South Korea to limit its involvement in the enclave, arguing that North Korean financial institutions that are involved in it are also involved in illicit activities.

The unilateral drive by the United States is likely to expand on existing efforts that U.S. officials maintain have already had a damaging effect on North Korea. Indeed, the effectiveness of sanctions so far may have propelled North Korea to walk away from negotiations on its nuclear program and test a weapon, some experts say.