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The UN Security Council struggled to agree a response to North Korea's threat to conduct a nuclear bomb test as the United States said it had detected possible preparations for an explosion.
While the isolated Stalinist state's neighbours called on the North to return to nuclear talks and China urged restraint, South Korea warned it might take sanctions if the bomb test was staged.
The UN Security Council held a hastily arranged meeting to find common ground on how to counter North Korea's plan, announced Tuesday, but US Ambassador John Bolton conceded: “At this stage, there's division.”
Britain's ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, said the 15 council members had expressed concern about North Korea but had decided to let experts work on a “strategic response” later Wednesday.
“We will find out in this experts' meeting this afternoon what North Korea's protectors on the council are going to do,” Bolton said, in an apparent reference to China and Russia, which infuriated China's representative.
Bolton called the North Korean announcement a “very serious threat” that requires the council “to speak very firmly”.
But Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya took exception to Bolton's comments. “We are all concerned about the North Korean announcement. On this issue, everybody is unanimous… No one is going to protect them,” he said.
China's envoy said all council members supported the idea that a settlement should be found at the six-nation talks which North Korea has been boycotting since last November.
A US intelligence official said unusual movement had been detected at one of several suspected sites where North Korea could conduct a test and warned it could be carried out at any time.
“We've seen some activity in the area,” said the official, without naming the site. “When I say activity, I mean personnel, vehicles, materials, things of that nature.”
The official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said it was difficult to discern how far advanced North Korea's test preparations might be.
“The bottom line is they could conduct it with little or no warning,” the official said.
Many nations called on North Korea to abandon its planned test, which analysts have said was an effort to gain leverage with the United States.
Washington led calls for the North to return to the talks with the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Japan that have been stalled for 11 months.
“The right thing is to end these kinds of provocations and end these kinds of threats and to go back to the six-party talks, which is where we all want to be to come up with a viable solution to North Korea's nuclear program,” State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said.
North Korea has boycotted the six-party talks in protest at financial sanctions the United States imposed on a Macau bank accused of laundering funds for the North Koreans.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon discussed the new crisis with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, officials said.
Lavrov and Ban agreed that an explosion would be “unacceptable” and “can only serve to worsen the situation and complicate the resumption of six-party talks”, said a Russian statement.
Seoul's Unification Minister Lee Jong-Seok warned it would halt economic aid worth tens of millions of dollars to its impoverished communist neighbour if it exploded a nuclear device.
Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, set to hold his first summits with the leaders of China and South Korea, said the world needed to send a united message to Pyongyang.
“It is important that the international community send North Korea a message that it must respond to their concerns,” Abe said. “The situation will not be resolved until North Korea recognizes this.”
China, the main political ally and chief supplier of food and energy to the impoverished North, has however appealed for “calm and restraint” amid the new tensions.
The North said in February 2005 that it had developed a nuclear weapon, and US intelligence services believe the country has developed a few crude atomic weapons.
North Korea drew international criticism in July, when it test-fired seven missiles, including one thought to be capable of reaching US soil. In response, the UN Security Council imposed missile-related sanctions against Pyongyang.
