US warns North Korea directly over nuclear test

Washington, NU Online
The United States has warned North Korea directly of international repercussions if it proceeds with a nuclear test, the US envoy to atomic talks with the Stalinist state said on Wednesday (4/10).

The North Koreans were contacted through their United Nations mission in New York, said Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the lead negotiator to the six party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

<>“Yesterday we sent the message directly to the DPRK (North Korea) through the New York channel on our view of what such a test would mean,” Hill said.

It is believed to be the first direct contact between the two countries since North Korea announced Tuesday that it was planning its first nuclear test explosion.

The threat by Pyongyang, which has openly declared it has nuclear bombs, drew international concerns and the prospect of additional sanctions against the Stalinist state.

Hill left the door open for direct negotiations to end the crisis. “We have spoken consistently that we will meet them bilaterally, but has to be in the context of the six-party talks,” he said at the launching of the US-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.

Asked to explain what he meant by the US view that was conveyed to North Korea, Hill said a nuclear blast “would be a very highly provocative act, and the international community cannot be indifferent to that.

“It would invite the prospect of proliferation ... and we have no choice but to act resolutely to make sure the DPRK and every other country understand” the implications of such a move, Hill said.

North Korea, he said, should reconsider if it believed that blasting a nuclear device would make them a de facto internationally recognized atomic power.

“We are currently involved in discussions within the US government (and with) our friends, allies and partners and I am not prepared at this point to say what we are going to do but I am prepared to say we are not going to wait for a nuclear North Korea, we are not going to accept it,” he said.

North Korea, he said, had come to “a very important fork in the road — it can have a future or it can have these (nuclear) weapons but it cannot have them both.”

Hill said the six party talks involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States was still the most viable channel to resolve the crisis.

North Korea walked away from the talks in November last year after Washington imposed financial sanctions against the reclusive Stalinist state.

The UN Security Council on Wednesday sought agreement on a firm response to the North Korean plan to test an atom bomb.

The Kyodo news agency reported that Japan and US had agreed to seek a council resolution imposing sanctions on North Korea if it went ahead with the blast, quoting Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi after talks with US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns.

A US State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “sanctions were among diplomatic tools that the Security Council would consider if North Korea did carry out a nuclear test.”

The council’s 15 ambassadors tasked their experts to meet again Thursday to pore over a Japanese draft statement asking North Korea “not to undertake such a test and to refrain from any action that might aggravate tension.”

The statement, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, also urges Pyongyang to “return immediately to the six-party talks (on ending its nuclear weapons program) without precondition.”

US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Tuesday said that US officials “have met bilaterally with the North Koreans in the context of the six-party talks. And Chris Hill every time he has participated in a round of six-party talks has met with the North Koreans in the context of it.

“We continue to say to the North Koreans that if they would like to have a meeting with . . . Hill again, all they need to do is agree to come back to the talks and sit down in that format,” said Casey. (afp/dar)