Sanctions will lead to war, North Korea warns America

North Korea stepped up its rhetoric in its clash with the United States over resuming its nuclear programmes, warning that an imposition of sanctions on the country would lead to war "which shows no mercy".

The warning came as more than 100,000 North Koreans took part in a carefully choreographed rally in the capital, Pyongyang, raising their fists in the air against a backdrop of Stalinist banners and chanting support for the country's military.

Diplomatic efforts centred on Washington, with a meeting of officials from the US, Japan and South Korea. At the same time South Korea dispatched its senior foreign affairs official to the White House for talks with Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser.

North Korea delivered its message of defiance through the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency. "Sanctions mean a war and the war knows no mercy. The US should opt for dialogue with [North Korea], not for war, clearly aware that it will have to pay a very high price for such reckless acts," the agency said.

On Monday, the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, again urged North Korea to renounce its nuclear ambitions and to re-admit weapons inspectors who were ejected from the country before Christmas. The watchdog stopped short of referring the matter to the UN Security Council in New York, a first step towards imposing international sanctions on the nation.

The White House has been trying to play down tensions with North Korea as President George Bush struggles to keep the focus on Iraq, which has been accused of illegally harbouring weapons of mass destruction. On Monday, Mr Bush dismissed any notion of invading North Korea.

While keeping the door open for talks with Pyongyang, the US is wary of engaging in detailed negotiations. "We're not ruling out ever talking to them. We're just ruling out negotiating with them in the face of their threats on maintaining and moving forward with their nuclear programme," a US official said. "If they are prepared to ... reverse course on their nuclear programme, we'd talk to them."

China, North Korea's main ally, appealed for a negotiated settlement, but a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman would not say whether Beijing might apply pressure on Pyongyang.

At the State Department in Washington, the US Assistant Secretary of State, James Kelly, who will travel this week to the South Korean capital, Seoul, met South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister, Lee Tae Shik, and the head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's bureau of Asian and Oceanian affairs, Mitoji Yabunaka. They were expected to issue a statement later.

Media reports in Seoul suggested that South Korea was interested in encouraging the US to offer a carrot to Pyongyang to help it to step back from the brink. This could involve resuming oil shipments to North Korea, which were suspended by Washington in December soon after the crisis erupted. The US declared last month that by reopening a nuclear plant and removing UN monitoring devices, Pyongyang was violating a 1994 agreement under which it had agreed to suspend nuclear activities in return for the energy shipments.

Commenting on yesterday's rally in Pyongyang, the official news agency said the people were vowing to "consider the military affairs as the most important state affair..." North Korea also lashed out at Washington for portraying it as an international missile threat. "The US tops the world's list in producing and selling the weapons of mass destruction."

In a separate development, the UN's World Food Programme appealed last night for donations to pay for urgently needed food supplies to North Korea, whose economy has been crippled by mismanagement and drought. The UN said it had only about 33,000 tons of food aid and needed a further 80,000 tons to meet North Korea's needs over the next three months. The agency has asked for $200m (£125m) or 500,000 tons of food to see North Korea through the year, but so far only Italy and the EU have responded with offers of 10,000 and 23,000 tons, respectively.