NORTH KOREA gave warning yesterday that any attempt by the United States to impose economic sanctions as a result of its continuing nuclear weapons programme would provoke war on the divided peninsula.

America said yesterday that it was willing to talk to North Korea about how the Stalinist state could honour its pledges not to develop nuclear weapons, but said that it would not offer concessions to change Pyongyang’s behaviour. The US gave the undertaking in a joint statement issued after talks in Washington with senior diplomats from Japan and South Korea about North Korea.

Using familiar, if chilling, language, North Korea rallied an estimated 100,000 communist faithful, who braved sub-zero temperatures in Pyong- yang to cheer as the leadership announced increased military spending to boost the country’s formidable Armed Forces. Footage of the rally, released by the state media, showed tens of thousands of men and women lined up in orderly rows standing to attention in Kim Il Sung Square, named after the North Korean leader’s late father.

North Korea already boasts the world’s third-largest army and spends more than 14 per cent of its national budget on the military, even though its economy is collapsing and many people are starving.

In its warning, relayed by the state news agency, the Government referred to last month’s seizure by Spanish and US forces of a ship carrying North Korean Scud missiles to Yemen. The shipment was eventually allowed to continue, but it raised the possibility that America could at some stage impose a naval blockade around North Korea and choke off its trade routes, used primarily to earn foreign currency through arms exports to the developing world.

“The strategy means total economic sanctions aimed at isolating and stifling the DPRK (North Korea),” the agency said. “Sanctions mean a war and war knows no mercy. The US should adopt dialogue with the DPRK.”

President Bush, who branded North Korea part of an “axis of evil” this time last year and later said that he despised Kim Jong Il, the country’s leader, has tempered his criticism more recently.

Last night a strategy to resolve the emergency was discussed in Washington between senior American, South Korean and Japanese diplomats. Russia and China, which have good relations with North Korea, are also expected to act as mediators.

Nevertheless, the United Nations agency responsible for monitoring the spread of nuclear technology gave warning that time was running out for North Korea, saying that it had only weeks to meet its international obligations.

Late last month North Korea removed seals at its Yongbyon nuclear plant 60 miles north of the capital, and expelled two monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The organisation said that Pyongyang had a last chance to allow the inspectors back and comply with its other obligations or the matter would be sent to the UN Security Council, which could take punitive steps.

“We have made it very clear to North Korea that it is not an open-ended invitation. It is only a matter of weeks,” Mohamed El Baradei, the IAEA Director-General, said. “If they do not come into compliance, we will have to go to the Security Council.”

Already there are suspicions that, despite an agreement in 1994 to freeze its nuclear weapons programme, North Korea has assembled one or two warheads using enriched uranium from a secret atomic facility.

According to a document circulated to the IAEA this week, the country may also have a little plutonium from Yongbyon, enough to build a “dirty bomb”. Experts believe that North Korea could produce enough fissile material over the next few months to build several more warheads.

The war of words

• (North Korea) can never accept the US brigandish demand because submission leads to death — Official KCNA news agency, December 31, 2002
  
  
• The Korean People’s Army should . . . prepare to be human bombs to defend the headquarters of the revolution — Kim Il Chol, Defence Minister. KCNA, December 24, 2002
  
  
• The US imperialists will get nothing but a bitter defeat and death in the confrontation with (North Korea) — Rodong Sinmun, official newspaper, December 12, 2002
  
  
• Let us develop all forms of anti-US struggles into a struggle for a pullout of US forces from South Korea. Let us decisively reject the United States, kingpin of evil, which is hellbent on moves to stifle North Korea — KCNA, September 7, 2002
  
  
• (We) can never pardon the US imperialist murderers. If those aggressors are allowed to stay in South Korea, our fellow countrymen will have to shed more blood and the entire nation will face a nuclear calamity — KCNA, February 2, 2002

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