A North Korean propaganda poster from 2003 shows the nation in "sacred struggle" with the United States.
A North Korean diplomat said Wednesday that sanctions against the tiny Communist nation would be regarded as an act of war. "Sanctions are nonsense," he told a South Korean news agency, Yonhap, which didn't give the diplomat's name. "If full-scale sanctions take place, we will regard it as a declaration of war." A spokesperson from the North Korea's foreign ministry backed up the position, which is just a repetition of the North's long-held stance on sanctions.
The United Nations Security Council is discussing tough sanctions this week to punish North Korea for testing its first-ever nuclear bomb over the weekend, against warnings and condemnation from almost every foreign government.
South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lee Kyu-hyung said his government, which has shied away from sanctions in the past, supported the discussions in the Security Council. "We hope that related countries can express in one voice a clear and firm position on North Korea's peace-destroying and provocative act through close consultations," he told reporters.
China and Russia, which both border North Korea, met other veto-holding members of the UN Security Council on Tuesday to discuss a range of sanctions proposed by the United States.
"I think that there have to be some punitive actions," said Beijing's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya. "We need to have a firm, constructive, appropriate but prudent response to North Korea's nuclear threat."
Russia called Monday's reported test a "colossal blow" to the nonproliferation regime but, like China, insisted an eventual UN resolution should not involve the use of force.
The United States, France and Britain, the three other permanent Council members, agreed that tough measures were needed fast. Diplomats hoped the resolution could be adopted by Friday on an array of weapons-related and financial sanctions.
Sanctions already hurting
Analysts say US sanctions imposed on North Korea earlier this year are biting already. Washington has tried to sever the North's links with the international financial system, accusing Pyongyang of complicity in counterfeiting and money laundering.
The restrictions have made it difficult for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to keep his elites happy with foreign luxury goods, which means he faces a potential threat to his rule from inside his regime.
Human Rights Watch, though, urged that emergency food aid to the impoverished North be continued, saying millions of ordinary citizens could be at risk of hunger and starvation.
In Pyongyang, North Korea's No. 2 leader said that whether his country conducted more tests depended on Washington. "The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to U.S. policy toward our country," Kyodo news agency quoted Kim Yong-nam as saying in a meeting.
"If the United States continues to take a hostile attitude and apply pressure on us in various forms, we will have no choice but to take physical steps to deal with that," he added.
Reports from Japanese news agencie on Wednesday morning said North Korea may have conducted a second nuclear test -- based on seismic monitoring in the region -- but swift denials came from South Korea and US authorities, which said there were no indications that Pyongyang had set off another bomb. Geological institutes offered a possible explanation: There had been a real earthquake. The US National Geological Institute said it had recorded an earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale near the coast of northern Japan.
Monday's underground test in North Korea -- which measured 4.2 on the Richter scale, according to US monitors -- is seen as a strategy by Kim Jong Il to keep enemies at bay by raising tensions in the region, enabling him to go on ruling his impoverished country in luxury.
cro/Reuters/AP/AFP/ddp
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