Russia warning over North Korea pressure

WITH mounting fears of a nuclear-armed North Korea, a US envoy arrived in Seoul yesterday to try to defuse the crisis amid warnings from Russia that too much pressure on the communist state could backfire.

North Korea again denied it admitted having a covert nuclear weapons programme and warned the US its people would disappear in a sea of fire.

In the latest diplomatic response to North Korea’s decision to pull out of a global treaty preventing the spread of nuclear arms, US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly was making his first visit to the region since October when he said Pyongyang admitted to a nuclear arms programme.

Mr Kelly is due to meet officials at the presidential Blue House tomorrow and to hold talks with president-elect Roh Moo-hyun. Analysts say Pyongyang and its secretive leader have been anxious for the survival of their administration since President Bush last year bracketed North Korea, Iraq and Iran an axis of evil.

South Korean officials, their capital within striking range of 11,000 North Korean artillery barrels, said Pyongyang was trying to hasten a resolution of the nuclear stand-off.

Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, Shinzo Abe, said Pyongyang was playing a dangerous game, but the issue could be resolved through talks.

However, Konstantin Pulikovsky, Russian prefect for the Far East, said his knowledge of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il suggested a soft approach was likely to be more effective.

“He will not permit being pressured from outside,” Mr Pulikovsky was quoted as saying.

Signalling its anger in a renewed outpouring of rage against the US, Pyongyang urged all Koreans to unite to rid the peninsula of the US presence, part of a drive to build on differences between South Korea and the US, sparked by mounting anti-American sentiment.

Blaming Washington for forcing the decision to abandon the NPT, KCNA said a “reckless challenge by the US would turn the stronghold of the enemy into a sea of fire”.

A North Korean diplomat said on Saturday a Soviet-built nuclear research reactor in Yongbyon would become operable in a few weeks.