North Korea one-on-one talks 'unacceptable' - Powell

North Korea wants talks with the United States alone to discuss its nuclear weapons programme and has snubbed efforts to include China, Russia and South Korea, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has told Congress.

But Powell said such talks were unacceptable, because many nations were in danger if the largely closed, communist nation continued to pursue nuclear weapons.

“We have to have a regional settlement,” Powell said. ”It can’t be just the US and the DPRK (Democratic Republic of Korea).”

North Korea’s response to the suggestion of regional talks – delivered through diplomatic channels and in low-level contacts with the Bush administration – was “no, no, no”, Powell said.

“We have to find a way to broaden the dialogue,” Powell told a House of Representatives committee.

“China is threatened, Russia is threatened, South Korea is threatened,” Powell said. “So many other countries are affected.”

Despite the standoff, Powell said a diplomatic solution was still possible.

Also yesterday, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said North Korea may pose a bigger threat as a supplier of nuclear weapons than as a potential aggressor in Asia.

“They sell almost everything,” Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “They are the world’s greatest proliferator of missile technology”, and hence a problem for more than one nation to solve, he said.

Rumsfeld also said the United States was working with South Korea to see if it should restructure and possibly reduce its forces in the country. Rumsfeld said he would like to see some of the forces moved away from Seoul, the capital, and the demilitarised zone between the Koreas.

He said he would like to see forces “more oriented toward an air hub and a sea hub with the ability to reinforce so that there’s still a strong deterrent, and possibly with our improved capabilities of moving people, some of those forces come back home”. The United States has about 37,000 soldiers in South Korea.

At the United Nations, the deputy US representative, Richard Williamson, said the Bush administration was not asking for economic sanctions to punish North Korea for its nuclear programme, preferring to pursue a diplomatic solution.

North Korea has said it would consider the imposition of sanctions an act of war.

Asked whether sanctions were a possibility in the near future, Williamson replied, “It’s not an issue right now.”

The United States and North Korea agreed in 1994 to freeze North Korea’s plutonium programme in exchange for energy supplies. It turned out North Korea went ahead with a separate programme to develop enriched uranium, Powell said yesterday.

Since then, North Korea has confirmed having an active nuclear programme and said it would quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty.