United States

Rice: Won't coerce allies on N. Korea

(AP)
Updated: 2006-10-20 09:37

SEOUL, South Korea - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she would not try to dictate how US allies enforce sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear program, and there were signs South Korea wouldn't quickly embrace Washington's approach.

"The key is to live up to the obligation that all of us undertook" to bar North Korea from exporting nuclear technology or receiving overseas help for its nuclear program, Rice said after meetings with South Korea's president and top diplomat.

South Korea and China are North Korea's closest neighbors and trading partners, accounting for two-thirds of its foreign commerce.

Both nations are pledged to carry out UN restrictions approved after North Korea's Oct. 9 test explosion of a small nuclear device, but they have hedged on details. Rice visits Chinese leaders Friday in Beijing.

In China, officials with four commercial banks said they have stopped moving funds in and out of North Korea, The Wall Street Journal Asia reported on its Web site Thursday, and one of the officials cited a ban ordered by Chinese regulators.

A senior US official confirmed that the Chinese were taking "unusual measures" against the North Koreans in their banking system but would not elaborate. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Rice had not yet discussed the issue with her Chinese counterparts.

Rice is on a crisis mission to Asia to reinforce the sanctions and reassure jittery allies of US support. But she played down differences over how to confront Pyongyang, and left US expectations vague.

"I did not come to South Korea nor will I go anyplace else to try to dictate to governments what they ought to do," to enforce the UN mandate, Rice said at a news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon.

Ban said Seoul will review the terms of economic projects it has undertaken with the North "in harmony and in line with the UN Security Council resolution and international demands," but he made no promises.

The United States is skeptical about a pair of landmark inter-Korean projects - a tourism venture and joint economic zone in North Korea - that are symbols of hopes for the peninsula's reunification. US officials have suggested the tourism project in particular serves to funnel badly needed hard currency to?North Korean.

A senior State Department official traveling with Rice said Seoul is likely to announce changes to the projects or other means of meeting the sanctions requirement after Rice has left the region, so as not to appear to have caved to US demands. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Rice's consultations were private.

South Korea has said it would fully comply with the sanctions but has also indicated it does not plan to halt key economic projects with the North.

North Korean Gen. Ri Chan Bok told ABC News that his country's nuclear weapons were "to defend our country and our people" and would not be sold for profit. He also said President Bush wants Pyongyang to "kneel."

At the White House, spokesman Tony Snow denied that Bush wanted North Korea to "kneel down," and said the US was seeking a diplomatic accord with North Korea over its nuclear weapons. Snow said that included a "better economy, more security, better relations with their neighbors, integration into the global community, as opposed to isolation."

Meanwhile, a Chinese envoy, State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan, delivered North Korean leader Kim Jong Il a personal message from China's president on Thursday in the highest-level Chinese visit to North Korea since the nuclear test.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Kim and the diplomat had "in-depth discussions" about the nuclear dispute.

"This is a very significant visit against the backdrop of major changes on the Korean Peninsula," Liu said at a news briefing. "We hope China's diplomatic efforts ... will bear fruit."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the Chinese diplomat was "carrying a very strong message from the Chinese government about the need for the North Koreans not to engage in additional nuclear tests and to move forward in terms of stopping their negative behavior."

But in a sign of the hurdles Rice faces in Beijing, Liu said that while China will "implement in earnest" the sanctions, they are "the means to an end, which is to solve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful way."

China signed on to the UN sanctions partly to rebuke North Korea for ignoring repeated Chinese warnings not to test-fire missiles or conduct a nuclear test. Beijing has since warned its neighbor against taking any further steps, such as a second nuclear test, that would heighten tensions.

Beijing's UN ambassador has indicated that inspectors will not board ships to search for equipment or material that can be used to make nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or ballistic missiles. China and South Korea worry that the North would consider the action provocative.