N Korea defiant amid fears of second nuclear test [+video]

SEOUL - North Korea today denounced UN sanctions over its nuclear test as a declaration of war and the United States and others suspected it may try a second bomb test despite international condemnation.

>> Reuters video: N Korea says sanctions 'are war'

Defiant in the face of sanctions backed by even its closest ally, China, Pyongyang said it had withstood international pressure before and so was hardly likely to yield now that it had become "a nuclear weapons state."

"It is quite nonsensical to expect the DPRK to yield to the pressure and threat of someone at this time when it has become a nuclear weapons state," official media quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

"The DPRK wants peace but is not afraid of war," he said, referring to the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The Bush administration began an intensive diplomatic campaign to rally international support for UN sanctions imposed over the nuclear test, and it said it would not be surprised by a second blast.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice left Washington on a trip to Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Moscow seeking to bolster support and find practical ways to implement the sanctions.

In Japan, she was to meet the foreign and defence ministers and the new prime minister, whose government is most closely allied with the US position in punishing North Korea for its nuclear test.

Rice's biggest challenge will be to get firm assurances from China, worried about the possible collapse of an impoverished and highly militarized state on its border, that it will follow through on the UN resolution.

Japan's Kyodo news agency, quoting a government official, said Chinese President Hu Jintao had voiced concern about how the UN sanctions are applied.

"Things must be done in such a way that they don't bring about an escalation of the situation into something uncontrollable," Hu told visiting Japanese lawmakers.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Washington would not be surprised by a second North Korean blast meant to test the will of the United Nations and the five states -- the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia -- engaged in long-stalled talks with Pyongyang about its nuclear ambitions.

"The North Koreans have made no secret of their desire to be provocative. The first test, while nuclear, did have a low yield and perhaps it would not be unreasonable to expect that the North Koreans would like to try to something again," he said in Washington.

"It would not be a good thing for them, but it certainly would not be out of character."

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov also said he did not exclude the possibility of another test blast.

"Russia's reaction in that case would be exactly the same as it was to the first nuclear explosion -- that is, negative," he told reporters.

The US government confirmed on Monday the October 9 underground blast was a nuclear explosion. US news networks NBC and ABC said spy satellites had spotted what may be preparations for another nuclear test.

The New York Times said the explosion was most likely not fuelled by uranium, but rather by plutonium harvested from North Korea's small, mothballed, nuclear reactor. The report, quoting unnamed officials, suggested fears Pyongyang had developed a uranium programme based on equipment and know-how from Pakistan were unfounded.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, speaking to reporters after crisis talks in South Korea, warned Pyongyang it would head deeper into isolation if it conducted another test.

"We would all regard a second test as a belligerent answer on North Korea's part to the international community," he said. "The DPRK really has to understand that the international community is not going to accept the DPRK as a nuclear state.

"I think the DPRK is under some impression that once they make nuclear tests that somehow we will respect them more. The fact of the matter is nuclear tests make us respect them less."

European Union foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg also demanded North Korea refrain from further nuclear tests and urged it to commit itself to a moratorium on missile launches.

- REUTERS