UNITED NATIONS — Calling for the United Nations to apply “common sense,” Japan said yesterday that North Korea should play by the rules before it receives any more aid from the world body.

On the heels of a U.N. Development Program imbroglio dubbed “Cash for Kim,” the agency’s executive board yesterday stopped short of freezing all its activities in the communist state, choosing instead to “adjust” any new funding for its North Korean operation while its practices are under investigation.

That decision, as well as press reports on the scandal last week, was seen as a concerted new effort from the two largest contributors to the U.N. budget, Japan and America, to cut off outside assistance to Pyongyang and put more pressure on the Kim Jong Il government.

But yesterday’s unprecedented Japanese proposal, to condition any further aid to North Korea on its adherence to U.N. Security Council resolutions, surprised U.N. traditionalists and raised the ire of countries such as Russia and Cuba.

Humanitarian and development assistance programs are traditionally disbursed by U.N. agencies, with no political strings attached, and several speakers accused Tokyo and Washington of politicizing U.N. assistance to poorer countries. They said the Japanese proposal would set a precedent that could be used in the future to deny aid to other violators of U.N. resolutions.

A North Korean envoy, Jang Chun Sik, said yesterday that recent “mass media” reports about rules violations within the UNDP’s North Korean office were nothing but a “sinister attempt” to politicize the agency and single out his country in an “unfair and unacceptable” way.

A Japanese Foreign Ministry official, Koji Tsuruoka, then reminded members of the UNDP executive board that in testing nuclear weapons last year, North Korea breached two major Security Council resolutions, violating the U.N. charter.

“What I have said is simply common sense,” Mr. Tsuruoka said. “By two total rejections of Security Council resolutions, the U.N. has been hit twice by a member state. It is unthinkable for the U.N. to reward the authorities of such a member state by providing it with funds.”

Last week, Secretary-General Ban ordered an external audit of every U.N. agency — and specifically the UNDP’s North Korea operation — after American diplomats said the Pyongyang office had violated the agency’s regulations.

In a letter to UNDP representatives, Washington diplomats alleged that North Korean government officials diverted some of the hard currency used in the U.N. operation to the country’s nuclear program.

America has frozen all funding to the UNDP in North Korea, an American ambassador to the United Nations, Mark Wallace, said yesterday. “We think it’s important to have close scrutiny and monitoring of all UNDP programs to ensure that there are real, effective accountability and processes in place,” he said.

Yesterday’s resolution, which was accepted by all 36 members of the agency’s board, said the UNDP would “adjust” the 2007 budget that finances some 20 projects the agency administers in North Korea until the completion of the external audit of the program. The board will review its policy at that point and decide whether to resume the assistance program.

Under the resolution, UNDP activities in North Korea will not be suspended completely; the agency will continue to pursue “sustainable human development objectives.” The president of the UNDP board, Carsten Staur of Denmark, was unable to explain yesterday what those objectives were, or which of the existing programs would remain.

Japan, according to several sources, specifically requested that any assistance program administered jointly with the North Korean government be suspended, including programs designed to help the regime be more efficient.

Several sources at the United Nations said U.N. and other aid agencies carry out practices similar to the ones used in North Korea at outposts in other countries, including Syria, Iran, and Cuba.

For a decade, the UNDP’s budget for its North Korean outpost has averaged $3 million a year, according to a spokesman for the agency, David Morrison.