WASHINGTON – Vice President Cheney yesterday spoke out against Kim Jong Il, describing North Korea under his regime as a “police state” and calling on China to place direct pressure on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

Speaking of Mr. Kim, whom he called “irresponsible,” Mr. Cheney said during an interview with Larry King broadcast last night on CNN. “He doesn’t take care of his people at all, and he obviously wants to throw his weight around and become a nuclear power.”

Mr. Cheney was blunt on China: “The Chinese need to understand that it’s incumbent upon them to be major players here,” he said.

The remarks come amid growing tension between America and North Korea. Last week, the Pentagon announced that it would send 15 F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter-bombers to South Korea, according to the Daily Telegraph of London. The Telegraph summarized a Pentagon statement as saying that aircraft crews for the planes needed to familiarize themselves with the Korean peninsula’s terrain.

Two sources close to the White House told The New York Sun that the Bush administration soon will name a former adviser to the president, Jay Lefkowitz, to the newly created post of special envoy for human rights in North Korea, a move many human rights advocates hope will bring attention to the massive woes of its people.

Also, representatives for the two Koreas announced last week that on June 6 they would hold ministerial discussions on reunification. Earlier this month, a State Department envoy told North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations that America still respected the country’s sovereignty, urging Pyongyang to return to multi-party talks aimed at eliminating the country’s nuclear weapons program.

The carrot-and-stick diplomacy may be in response to recent estimates from senior American intelligence agencies that North Korea is preparing to test a nuclear device or a missile. In 2002, North Korean envoys admitted to conducting a parallel nuclear enrichment program outside of the facilities it agreed to freeze in 1994 as part of an agreement with America and the European Union known as the joint framework agreement.

So far, the official word from North Korea’s state-run press over the weekend has been bellicose. The country’s official news service said America held a “wicked intent to strengthen its colonial rule and militarist occupation of South Korea and to make South Korea a victim of the U.S. scheme to wage a war of aggression.”

In the interview with Larry King, Mr. Cheney also addressed domestic matters. He expressed optimism that his party will have enough votes to force an end to debate in the Senate on the nomination of John Bolton to be America’s ambassador to the United Nations, and confirm him to the post. Last Thursday, the minority party managed to extend the debate, an effective filibuster, despite the fact that three Democrats voted against the delay.

“We’ve got the votes to confirm him. I’m convinced we will get him confirmed,” Mr. Cheney told Mr. King. “We just need three more and I think we’ll get those when they come back.”

Democratic leaders in the Senate last week said that they planned to delay the vote on Mr. Bolton because the Bush administration had not complied with their request for Mr. Bolton’s preparations on testimony he gave in September 2003 to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding Syrian proliferation. The Democrats were also demanding the names of American officials redacted from National Security Agency intelligence reports requested by Mr. Bolton as undersecretary of state.

“The information that they’ve requested basically has been made available to the chairman and ranking member of the intelligence committees,” Mr. Cheney said. “There’s nothing there. This material has been reviewed, the information they’re asking for. I think it’s just an excuse.”

One reason often cited by those in the Senate who oppose Mr. Bolton’s nomination is that in 2003, on the eve of multi-party talks with North Korea, he delivered an impassioned speech in which he called Kim Jong Il a tyrant, among other epithets.