North Korea warns US that it will test again

As North Korea threatened to carry out further nuclear blasts, President George Bush insisted yesterday that the regime must face "serious repercussions" for Monday's claimed test at the United Nations and elsewhere. But he declared that the US had no intention of attacking the impoverished Communist country.

At the same time, Mr Bush brushed aside a renewed call by Kofi Annan, the outgoing UN secretary general, for bilateral talks between Washington and Pyongyang. That strategy, adopted by the Clinton administration, had failed, the President said, arguing that the currently stalled six-nation process represented the best chance of achieving a diplomatic solution. Mr Bush's remarks, at an hour-long press conference at the White House, came as tensions in east Asia continued to escalate. As Japan announced sweeping bilateral sanctions, North Korea's deputy leader, Kim Yong Nam, warned that further pressure from the US might lead to more tests.

"The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to US policy towards our country," he told a visiting delegation from Japan's Kyodo news agency. "If the United States continues to take a hostile attitude ... we will have no choice but to take physical steps to deal with that." If Mr Bush has his way, that pressure will be primarily exerted through the UN, where the Security Council is trying to agree on a set of sanctions, including an arms embargo and naval inspections of North Korean vessels - which, the US, Britain and France argue should come under Chapter VII of the UN charter.

This formulation would make any sanctions mandatory and opens the theoretical possibility of military action - even though Mr Bush has ruled that out. But the other two veto-wielding powers, China and Russia, while supporting some form of sanctions, favour milder action. Most crucial is the attitude of China, whose food and energy shipments keep Kim Jong Il in power, but which at all costs wants to avoid provoking the regime's collapse and probable chaos along its north eastern border.

Japan, however, has no such qualms. Tokyo yesterday announced a ban on imports from North Korea, closing its ports to North Korean ships, and its borders to almost all North Koreans. Japan, warned the new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was "in gravest danger". The steps were essential to safeguard Japanese lives and property, he said. "These measures were taken to protect the peace."

Assuming the sanctions are approved by the full cabinet tomorrow, they will cause further significant discomfort to the regime in Pyongyang, depriving it of precious hard currency earnings, and effectively severing personal communications between Japan and North Korea, which have no formal diplomatic relations.

At his press conference, a notably defensive Mr Bush rejected charges that Monday's apparent nuclear test in remote north-eastern North Korea proved that his policy had failed. Instead, he blamed the "intransigence" of Kim Jong Il for the present crisis. North Korea had been trying to secure bombs and missiles "long before I came into office", and was responsible for what had happened.

But the President failed to explain why he had once declared that a nuclear North Korea was "intolerable" - yet had now permitted it to happen. He also sidestepped questions about any "red line" that could not be crossed in future, saying merely that the international community would be sending "a clear message" of its views to Pyongyang.

His vagueness reflected the reality which he, like President Bill Clinton during the 1994 confrontation, has been forced to accept. For all its tough talk, and however unpalatable the prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korea, the US has no military option available that would not provoke all-out war on the Korean peninsula. The "Who Lost North Korea" issue is featuring already in the campaign for November's midterm elections.