RUSSIA and China are blocking an American plan to mount international inspections of all cargoes entering and leaving North Korea for fear of provoking a military showdown.

North Korea underlined the concerns by saying yesterday that it would regard such sanctions as an act of war. Pyongyang threatened “physical measures”, including a second nuclear test, unless Washington ceased to confront it. President Bush said that he had “no intention of attacking” the isolated Stalinist regime and that he would pursue “all diplomatic efforts” in response to North Korea’s first atomic explosion. “Diplomacy hasn’t run its course, and we’ll continue working to give diplomacy a full opportunity to succeed,” he said. But he made it clear that President Kim Jong Il must face “serious repercussions” for sparking the world’s latest nuclear crisis.

The repercussions envisaged by Mr Bush were being contested by Russia and China as they outlined their positions on a new Security Council resolution that could be adopted as early as tomorrow.

Their stance meant that while agreement was close to a resolution imposing limited sanctions on North Korea, they would shy away from any enforcement action.

While Moscow and Beijing are ready to accept legally binding sanctions aimed at Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, they are balking at a US proposal to enforce them with international inspections.

Vitali Churkin, Moscow’s UN Ambassador, has argued that North Korea could use the inspections to provoke a military confrontation.

Russia and China oppose extending the sanctions to luxury goods, as Washington has proposed, or to a total embargo on all North Korean exports, as Japan has suggested. They may go along, however, with plans to prohibit travel by highranking North Korean officials.

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, urged the US to hold direct bilateral talks with North Korea. “I believe that the US and North Korea should talk,” he said.

North Korea, too, used the threat of further nuclear tests to try to force the US to one-to-one talks. Kim Yong Nam, the president of the Presidium of the North Korean Supreme People’s Assembly, said: “The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to US policy toward our country. 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.”

In a separate statement, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said that North Korea was prepared to return to six-way talks in Beijing involving the US, China, Russia, Japan and North and South Korea.

“Even though we conducted a nuclear test due to the United States, our willingness to realise the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula through dialogue and negotiation remains unchanged. If the US continues to harass and put pressure on us, we will regard this as a declaration of war.”

The remarks suggest that North Korea regards the possession of nuclear weapons as a negotiating tool.

News and comment on Korea: www.timesonline.co.uk/asia

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