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The Globe and Mail July 6, 2006

North Korea faces diplomatic hardball

By Paul Koring
With a report from Reuters, AP

WASHINGTON -- Faced with emerging weapons crises from two "axis-of-evil" states on opposite sides of the world, the Bush administration is attempting to round up support for diplomatic hardball as showdowns with both North Korea and Iran loom.

"We will hold them to account," said President George W. Bush, who told reporters he would be personally involved "on the phone" in an effort to rally world leaders behind a unified reaction.

But with stubborn insurgencies in both Iraq and Afghanistan sapping his political capital and tying down the bulk of the U.S. military, there was no sabre rattling yesterday from the Bush administration. Instead, the President warned of serious but unspecified consequences against both countries.

"The best way to solve this problem diplomatically is for there to be more than one nation speaking to North Korea, more than America voicing our opinions," Mr. Bush said, treading softly despite missile firings on Tuesday by the regime in Pyongyang, including the launch of a long-range Taepodong-2 that failed only seconds after liftoff.

"Therefore, the five of us -- Russia, South Korea, Japan, China and the United States -- spoke with one voice about the rocket launches. And we will work together to continue to remind the leader of North Korea that there is a better way forward for his people."

North Korea's UN envoy threatened "all-out countermeasures" if the UN Security Council imposed sanctions over its test-launch of several missiles.

"We will be forced to take all-out countermeasures if sanctions are exercised," Han Song Ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's U.N. mission, said yesterday, according to Japanese broadcaster TBS.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay sounded a more hawkish tone than Mr. Bush. "These missile launches represent a major threat to peace and stability in northeast Asia," Mr. MacKay said in a statement as Prime Minister Stephen Harper headed for talks today in Washington with Mr. Bush.

Meanwhile, a high-level Iranian failed to appear for talks in Brussels on Tehran's nuclear-weapons program, sending that standoff closer to crisis.

"If Iran is trying to stall, it's not going to work," warned U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, adding there would be no extension to the mid-July deadline for Tehran's ruling mullahs to accept a deal to abandon the country's weapons-grade nuclear programs.

Tehran later said it would resume talks with the European Union next week, but prospects for a negotiated solution remain bleak.

Both Pyongyang and Tehran have remained defiant in the face of international calls that they scrap nuclear-weapons and long-range missile programs.

"This would appear to confirm President Bush's axis-of-evil statement in a very blatant way, as both Iran and North Korea thumb their collective nose to the rest of the world," said Charles Vick, an expert at GlobalSecurity.org who has closely analyzed the missile programs of both countries.

The White House was vague, saying only that it wanted "whatever appropriate pressure on the government of Pyongyang to try to make sure that it steps back from these acts of provocation; that it steps back from being an arms supplier to terrorist regimes, including Iran and Syria."

In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs spokesman Rodney Moore said, "Canada stands ready to work with the rest of the international community in persuading North Korea to end its program of missile development."

Yesterday, an emergency meeting of the 15-member United Nations Security Council underscored the difficulty in applying meaningful pressure to so-called rogue states seeking weapons of mass destruction. China and Russia, both veto-wielding states, made clear that, aside from strong statements, they weren't willing to impose sanctions on the neo-Stalinist regime in Pyongyang over the missile firings.

Pyongyang has muscled its way back into the spotlight of international condemnation after months when attention was focused primarily on Iran's weapons programs. Some analysts regard the move as a success, while others see the missile launches as a failure of both concerted international efforts to forestall the missile test and of any North Korean attempt to split the other five countries in the already-stalled six-party talks.

"If it was the desire of Kim Jong-il to turn this into a two-party negotiation or standoff between the United States and North Korea, he blew it," White House spokesman Tony Snow said yesterday.