US: The United States has no intention of attacking North Korea and remains committed to diplomacy but Pyongyang faces "serious repercussions" from its claimed nuclear test, President George Bush said yesterday.
The US is drafting a United Nations Security Council resolution that would impose harsh sanctions on North Korea, although the council's five permanent member states remain divided on the form UN action should take.
North Korea said it would regard harsh sanctions as an act of war and would respond with "physical steps" and would initiate further nuclear tests.
Japan yesterday imposed unilateral sanctions on Pyongyang, banning all North Korean imports and forbidding the country's ships from entering Japanese ports.
Mr Bush rejected calls from UN secretary general Kofi Annan and others in the international community for direct, bilateral talks between the US and North Korea.
"Bilateral negotiations didn't work. You know, I appreciate the efforts of previous administrations. It just didn't work," he said.
Mr Bush said that after Pyongyang reneged on a nuclear deal with the Clinton administration, he decided that six-party talks involving China, Russia, Japan and South Korea as well as the US and North Korea were the best way forward.
"We will continue to work diplomatically to solve the problem. That's what I owe the American people, to come up with a diplomatic solution. I also made it clear, and I will repeat, that we have security obligations in the region that I reconfirmed to our partners," he said.
Mr Bush said the US would step up defence co-operation with its Asian allies, including co-operation on a ballistic missile defence against North Korean attacks, and co-operation to prevent North Korea from exporting nuclear and missile technologies.
The UN security council agreed unanimously on Monday that Pyongyang should face punitive action and the US wants such sanctions to be imposed under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which can authorise action up to and including the use of military force. US ambassador to the UN John Bolton acknowledged yesterday that China and Russia wanted to take a different approach.
"There are a number of disagreements. We think the fact that North Korea has conducted a nuclear test does amount to a clear threat to international peace and security and warrants action under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter as well as a variety of strong measures. There's not agreement on all of those points, so we're continuing to press ahead and we'll have to see what further discussions entail," he said.
Among the measures the US is proposing is a naval blockade to ensure that North Korea does not seek to export nuclear technology or weapons to other states or to terrorist groups.
Declaring that the North Korean nuclear test claim represented the "gravest danger" to his country, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said Tokyo would move quickly to impose its own sanctions on Pyongyang.
"Japan is in gravest danger, if we consider that North Korea has advanced both its missile and nuclear capabilities. We cannot tolerate North Korea's actions if we are to protect Japanese lives and property. These measures were taken to protect the peace," he said.
The crisis has prompted a political spat between Senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton, the frontrunners for the Republican and Democratic parties' 2008 presidential nominations.
Mr McCain blamed the Clinton administration's policies for the crisis and criticised Ms Clinton for her approach to North Korea.
"I would remind Senator Clinton and other Democrats critical of the Bush administration's policies that the framework agreement her husband's administration negotiated was a failure. The Koreans received millions and millions in energy assistance.They've diverted millions of dollars of food assistance to their military," he said.
Ms Clinton's spokesman dismissed the claim and accused Mr McCain of playing politics with national security. "Now is not the time to play politics of the most dangerous kind with our policy on North Korea. History is clear that nothing the Bush administration has done has stopped the North Koreans from openly testing a nuclear weapon and presenting a new danger to the region of the world."