Bush warns North Korea amid missile tensions

By Tabassum Zakaria

VIENNA (Reuters) – President George W. Bush warned North
Korea on Wednesday against test-firing a long-range missile,
while other U.S. officials rejected an overture from Pyongyang
for bilateral talks with Washington on the issue.

Bush, speaking in Vienna after talks with European Union
leaders, said North Korea must abide by international
agreements on missile tests.

“North Koreans have made agreements with us in the past and
we expect them to keep their agreements,” Bush told a news
conference.

“For example agreements on test launches — we think it
would be in the world’s interest to know what they’re testing,
what they intend to do on their test.”

Washington says there is evidence North Korea might
test-fire its Taepodong-2 long-range missile and has activated
a ground-based interceptor missile-defense system in case
Pyongyang goes ahead with a launch.

Earlier, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the North
wanted talks with the United States over its planned missile
test, a sign Pyongyang might be ready to step back from the
mounting crisis.

But Washington ruled out any special talks over the issue
which it, along with South Korea and Japan, says poses a grave
danger to a region already deeply worried by North Korea’s
nuclear ambitions.

“We know that the U.S. is concerned about our missile test
launch,” Yonhap quoted North Korea’s deputy chief of mission at
the United Nations in New York, Han Song-ryol, as saying.

“Our position is to solve this situation through
discussions,” Han said, but added that Pyongyang had a right to
develop and test missiles.

A senior U.S. official traveling with Bush in Europe
rejected the suggestion of bilateral talks.

“Their desire for bilateral talks is well known, as is our
position on bilateral talks,” the official said in Vienna.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer told reporters in
Tokyo: “They have the opportunity to do that through the
six-party talks,” referring to bilateral discussions. “They
don’t have to take bad policies to talk to the United States.”

RESPONSE OPTIONS OPEN

The six-way talks involve the two Koreas, Japan, China, the
United States and Russia and have been stalled since November.
The talks are aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear arms programs
in return for aid and security assurances.

Schieffer said all options were on the table in terms of a
response to any missile launch, although other U.S. officials
have said that Washington was unlikely to try to shoot it down.

Tokyo has also threatened a harsh response.

Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who won the
Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his attempts to bring North Korea
in from the cold, canceled a trip to Pyongyang planned for next
week because of the tensions.

Kim, who orchestrated an unprecedented summit with North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il six years ago, had hoped to use the
meeting to help restart the nuclear talks.

North Korea has refused to return to the talks unless the
United States ends a crackdown on firms it suspects of aiding
the North in illicit activity such as counterfeiting.

Some analysts have said North Korea may be feeling the
pinch of the crackdown and Pyongyang is piqued that U.S. and
world attention has shifted to concerns about Iran’s nuclear
ambitions.

“One reason North Korea may be preparing for a test is
because what they want to avoid is the perception of weakness,”
said a diplomatic source in Seoul.

“They are feeling strangled,” the source said.

North Korea shocked the world in 1998 when it fired a
missile, part of which flew over Japan and landed in the
Pacific Ocean. Pyongyang trumpeted that as a satellite launch.

Through a long-practiced policy of brinkmanship, Pyongyang
might be trying to improve conditions under which it could
return to the six-party talks, analysts said.

“Could they be bluffing? I suppose they could be,”
Schieffer said. “It’s a pretty dangerous game to be engaged in
and hopefully they will step back and realize it is not in
their interests to do this.”

(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Jack Kim in
Seoul and Linda Sieg in Tokyo)