US looks to China to act on North Korea sanctions

TOKYO - The United States said yesterday it expected China to implement UN sanctions against North Korea despite misgivings, and warned Pyongyang that merely returning to nuclear talks would not be enough to halt the punitive steps.

The UN Security Council unanimously approved on Saturday a US-drafted package of financial and weapons sanctions against North Korea, which - defying international pressure - said last week that it had conducted a nuclear test.

"A return to six-party talks kind of doesn't do it," US Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer told a small group of journalists. "You have to come to the six-party talks and agree on how you are going to implement the September 19 agreement."

"If that implementation could then be verified by the international community, I think you would see walking back from the sanctions regime."

North Korea agreed in principle at six-party talks in September 2005 to scrap its nuclear arms programmes in return for aid, security assurances and promises of better diplomatic ties.

Talks among the two Koreas, Japan, the United States, China and Russia were held again in November 2005 on implementing that deal, but Pyongyang has since boycotted the discussions.

"There is a long way to go," Schieffer said. "No one wants to sanction North Korea. What we want is North Korea not to continue to develop nuclear weapons. If you can get the simple message across, maybe we can walk back from the abyss."

As Schieffer spoke, Washington's top envoy on North Korea, Christopher Hill, was flying to Tokyo ahead of a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing later this week.

Hill and Rice will meet their Asian counterparts to sort out how each country will implement the sanctions, given Chinese concerns about the risk of provoking Pyongyang and Tokyo's need to get around the constraints of its pacifist constitution.

China, Pyongyang's old Communist ally and trading partner, joined the Security Council's 15-0 vote for the sanctions.

But Beijing has made clear it would not conduct searches of cargo going to and from North Korea for material that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction.

Echoing comments by Rice on Sunday, Schieffer said the United States was confident China would play its part in the sanctions.

"They voted for the resolution ... It contains real sanctions and I think we have to take them at their word they would support them," he said.

Meaningful implementation

Japan, which joined the United States in seeking tough steps against Pyongyang and has already imposed its own sanctions, is now debating how it can take part in cargo-ship inspections within the scope of its pacifist constitution.

Schieffer said the United States expected Japan to play a substantial role but recognised its constitutional limits.

"I'm confident that Japan will be able to figure out a way to participate in a meaningful way that will send a strong message to North Korea that this is not the path to take," he said.

The UN resolution bars trade with North Korea in dangerous weapons, imposes bans on heavy conventional weapons and luxury goods and asks nations to freeze funds connected with North Korea's non-conventional arms programmes.

Japan has already imposed its own sanctions including a six-month ban on imports from North Korea, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Sunday that Tokyo was considering more steps.

Analysts have said sanctions were unlikely to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions, and their effectiveness at getting Pyongyang back to negotiations and curbing dangerous exports could be undermined by China and South Korea, which are worried about destabilising the region.

Most of Pyongyang's trade crosses through China, which fears a flood of refugees if the Pyongyang government collapses. North Korea also rests between China's border and South Korea, where 25,000 US troops are stationed.

South Korea has said it would "faithfully implement" the resolution. But Seoul, which has taken a more moderate approach than its US ally, also said it would not pull the plug on its two main projects in the North, an industrial park and a mountain resort, which supply steady cash to Pyongyang's leaders.

The spectre of a nuclear North Korea has prompted concern about an arms race in Asia and speculation that not only South Korea and Taiwan, but also Japan - the only country to suffer an atomic attack - might opt to develop nuclear weapons.

Shoichi Nakagawa, chairman of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council, said on Sunday that Japan should discuss the once-taboo topic.

On Monday, however, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki, echoing previous comments by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said Tokyo would stick to its principles of not having any nuclear arms.

- REUTERS