Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that the U.S. did not intend to invade or attack North Korea, but she warned the North’s leaders that they now risk sanctions “unlike anything that they have faced before.”
Even China, North Korea’s most important ally, said Tuesday that tough measures are in order, though its representatives at the United Nations said the punishments might not necessarily be the harsh ones that Washington is proposing.
“For China, we need to have a firm, constructive, appropriate, but prudent, response,” said Wang Guangya, the country’s ambassador to the UN.
Early Wednesday, a North Korean official said Pyongyang would regard sanctions as tantamount to a declaration of war.
“If full-scale sanctions take place, we will regard it as a declaration of war,” the Beijing-based official, who wasn’t identified, told Yonhap news agency.
The White House played down North Korea’s nuclear capability as government scientists and intelligence analysts waited for additional data to confirm whether Pyongyang had conducted a successful nuclear test.
Intelligence and administration officials said they are working on the assumption that North Korea detonated an atomic device but need more environmental sampling before they could rule out other possibilities, such as whether the blast was caused solely by conventional explosives. Intelligence officials were concerned that North Korea could test again, either to improve upon the first test or to prove its capabilities.
A military RC-135, an electronic monitoring aircraft, flew around the Gulf of Japan on Tuesday in an effort to detect nuclear radiation, two intelligence sources said. The same aircraft was used in July after North Korea carried out ballistic missile tests. But it could take several days before winds push radioactive particles toward an area where they could be clearly detected.
The United States, Britain and France all want a resolution drafted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which makes sanctions mandatory and poses the possibility of military enforcement as a last resort.
While China and Russia have spoken of the importance of taking serious action, they traditionally have been against invoking Chapter VII and have not indicated whether they would withdraw their opposition this time.
Sanctions sought by the United States include international inspections of all cargo moving into and out of North Korea to detect weapons-related material. But that proposal may prove difficult for China and Russia to accept, in part because their coastlines and borders would be affected by such an operation.
At the UN on Tuesday, the five permanent Security Council members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States–plus Japan, met twice to discuss North Korea.
