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Rice: North Korea Threat 'Very Provocative'
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday a North Korean nuclear test would be "a very provocative act," and she prodded Asian nations to rethink their relationships with the North Koreans.
"It would be a very provocative act by the North Koreans," Rice said during a press conference in Cairo, second stop on a Middle East tour. "They have not yet done it, but it would be a very provocative act."
"A North Korean nuclear test ... would create a qualitatively different situation on the Korean peninsula," Rice said. "I think that you would see that a number of states in the region would need to reassess where they are now with North Korea."
The remarks appeared directed primarily at China and South Korea.
South Korea, divided from its northern neighbor for more than 50 years, has sought better relations and eventual reunification. Seoul is a key U.S. ally but often tries to smooth over rhetorical and other disputes between Washington and Pyongyang.
Story Continues Below North Korea announced Tuesday that it would conduct a nuclear test in the face of what it claimed was "the U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war." The statement from Pyongyang gave no precise date when a test might occur.
Although the long-range missile failed during flight, tests of both a nuclear device and a missile theoretically able to deliver it to U.S. shores would give the North considerable bargaining power.
The North has pushed for direct talks with the United States, something Washington says it will not do outside the framework of the stalled six-nation talks. The North has refused to return to the disarmament talks because of U.S. financial restrictions imposed for its alleged illegal activity, including money laundering and counterfeiting.
"They are an active proliferator," said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "And were they to test and were they then to proliferate those technologies we‘d be living with a proliferator and obviously we‘d be living in a somewhat different world."
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations , John Bolton, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the U.S. would bring up North Korea‘s statement for discussion in a regular meeting of the U.N. Security Council U.N. Security Council. The Council is expected to talk about it on Wednesday.
Bolton said the Council should embark on "preventive diplomacy" and not just a "knee-jerk reaction" to the North Korean threat.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said a North Korean nuclear test would be an "unacceptable threat to peace and stability" and further isolate North Korea from the rest of the world.
The U.S. and other countries have imposed financial sanctions on Pyongyang.
Vice Adm. John Morgan, the Navy‘s chief of strategy and plans, told reporters that a possible test is "something we‘re very concerned about. We think there needs to be a diplomatic solution to this. We think the international community is working hard to achieve that."
© 2006 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Inside Cover Stories
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