N. Korea: U.N. Punishment Will Be Seen as a U.S. ‘Declaration of War’

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The New York Sun

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea turned a defiant face to the world yesterday, threatening to conduct more nuclear tests and to retaliate against any “harassment” by America.

The foreign ministry in Pyongyang said sanctions, which Washington is trying to push through the U.N. Security Council, would be regarded “as a declaration of war, and we will take a series of physical counter-measures.”

Kim Yong Nam, the regime’s highest ranking figure after President Kim Jong Il, gave a rare interview, repeating the message in similar words and suggesting that more nuclear tests were possible.

“The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to U.S. policy toward our country,” the head of the country’s Parliament said.

His comments were the most belligerent by the secretive communist state since it declared that it had conducted a first nuclear weapons test on Monday in a mountain range in the northeast. Japan went ahead with bilateral sanctions, moving to ban all North Korean imports and bar the country’s ships from Japanese ports.

“Japan is in the gravest danger when we consider that North Korea has advanced both its missile and nuclear capabilities,” Prime Minister Abe of Japan said after an emergency meeting.

Trade between Japan and North Korea amounted to $1.76 billion last year. Koreans living in Japan have repatriated funds in the past, but last month, Japan and other nations followed the lead of America in imposing sanctions on North Korean financial dealings overseas. In July, after North Korea staged a number of missile tests, the U.N. agreed to sanctions on material for the regime’s weapons of mass destruction program.

After two days of carefully avoiding inflammatory language, South Korea said it too was preparing for a possible attack by North Korea, which has been a separate entity since the end of World War II. Reports suggested that Seoul was seeking to obtain precision missiles capable of attacking North Korea storage facilities and intercepting incoming missiles. The crisis brought out sharp differences between President Bush and the outgoing U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan.

Mr. Bush said at a White House press conference that he had “no intention of attacking” North Korea. But he repeatedly ruled out the bilateral talks Pyongyang wants.

Hours earlier, Mr. Annan said such talks were the only way to end the crisis. He said: “I have always argued that we should talk to parties whose behavior we want to change.”

Mr. Bush, referring to previous direct talks, said: “The strategy did not work, and I learned a lesson from that.” He had decided that forging agreed positions with North Korea’s neighbors was the most effective approach.

American diplomats backed away from attempts to impose blanket bans on North Korean imports of luxury goods, including Mr. Kim’s favorite brandy.

Chinese diplomats branded such sanctions as “petty.”

America has long had an embargo on the export of military material and recently started blocking overseas bank accounts of businesses with dealings in North Korea.

In Seoul, which is less than three quarters of an hour’s drive from the heavily-armed frontier with the North, there is a huge contrast between the potential for disaster and the prosperous reality of boutiques, cafe culture and the frenetic “hurry hurry” attitude to business and getting on with life generally.

While the North starves, South Korea, despite its smallness and war-torn past, has become the 11th largest economy in the world in the past 15 years.

Nevertheless, the threat of war has affected confidence. Jeon Sang Su, 64, said: “I feel nervous. The only target of the North’s nuclear weapons is South Korea. Would they attack China? Would they attack Russia? They can’t. And the U.S. is too far away, so it is our country which has to face nuclear weapons.”

Reports from the North reaching refugees living in Seoul suggest that there is more discontent with the regime, although not over its nuclear policy.


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