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World powers are set to adopt a joint statement urging North Korea to abandon plans to test a nuclear bomb as the next UN chief said he is ready for a diplomatic mission to Pyongyang.
The expected UN Security Council text, which does not explicitly threaten sanctions, would be weaker than the United States and Japan had requested amid disagreement over how to rein in the communist state.
As the man at the centre of the storm — North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il — visited army commanders, frantic diplomacy intensified to dissuade his regime from carrying out its plan.
Russia has held direct talks with Pyongyang, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on a visit to Warsaw, adding: “We are all very worried about this.”
Both the United States and South Korea have warned they cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed North, Japan has called for sanctions while China, Pyongyang's main ally, has urged it to show restraint.
North Korean official media reported that during Kim's visit — it did not specify when — he was greeted with cheers and shouts of “Let's fight at the cost of our lives for the respected Supreme Commander Comrade Kim Jong Il!”
The Stalinist state has remained technically at war with the United States and South Korea for half a century.
South Korean Defence Minister Yoon Kwang-Ung and his US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld consulted Friday on the threat, the defence ministry in Seoul said, without going into details.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon — almost certain to be confirmed as next UN chief in a vote Monday — would be willing to visit North Korea to negotiate an end to its nuclear programme, foreign ministry officials in Seoul said.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Ban said outgoing UN chief Kofi Annan had been unable to visit the North for the past decade but that he felt he would be in a better position to do so.
“If necessary, I will take my own initiatives to visit both North and South Korea and I will try to engage (Pyongyang) myself,” he added.
In New York, Japan's Kenzo Oshima, who chairs the UN Security Council this month, said experts had made “good progress” in efforts to fine-tune a draft statement.
“Most likely we will have something adopted (Friday),” he added Thursday.
Japan and the United States had pushed for inclusion of a threat to resort to mandatory sanctions, including an arms embargo and other trade and financial sanctions under Chapter Seven of the UN charter.
Asked whether the latest version of the text would refer to Chapter Seven, Oshima replied: “I do not think at this stage it is something all members can agree.”
China and Russia are known to be opposed to biting sanctions.
The latest UN text would “urge the DPRK (North Korea) not to undertake such a test and to refrain from any action that might aggravate tension.”
It would call for it “to return immediately to the six-party talks without precondition and work toward the expeditious implementation” of its pledge in September 2005 to abandon its nuclear weapons program in exchange for energy and security benefits.
The North since November has boycotted the talks with China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States in response to US efforts to cut its links to the international banking system.
US State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said Washington expected a “strong Security Council statement” later Friday.
If the North Koreans carry out a test, he said, “we are open to considering a full range of diplomatic actions,” but played down talk of military action such as a naval blockade.
“Should they go ahead with a test, we would expect to see … sanctions pursued under Chapter Seven,” he added, without elaborating.
New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has acquired a reputation as a hardliner on Pyongyang, is due on Sunday and Monday to visit China and South Korea at which North Korea will dominate the agenda.
Chosun Sinbo, a newspaper published by ethnic Koreans in Japan and seen as representing Pyongyang's view, said a test was “unavoidable” unless the United States was more conciliatory on talks.
A US military plane which can monitor nuclear tests flew from a US airbase in Okinawa, Japan, toward the Korean peninsula Wednesday, Japanese media said. The Pentagon declined to confirm or deny the reports.
A US intelligence official said earlier this week that unusual movement had been detected at one of several suspected North Korean test sites, but senior Japanese officials said they had no signs yet that a test was imminent.
