Gates to press for Far East unity on NKorea threat
2009-05-27

Category United Nations Nations South Korea Philippines Russia North Korea City Manila Category Regions Regions Asia Pacific Rim Manila Europe People Robert Gates Hillary Clinton Event Korea Nuclear Crisis North Korea-U.S. Source (AP)

WASHINGTON - The White House on Wednesday accused North Korea of "saber-rattling" for attention as the Pentagon began the delicate task of reassuring Asian allies of U.S. support without further provoking the communist government.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton both lobbed carefully worded verbal salvos at North Korea. At the same time, Defense Secretary Robert Gates headed to Singapore for long-planned meetings with Asian nation counterparts already jittery about America's commitment to the region.

Given Monday's underground nuclear test, the question of how to deal with North Korea was expected to overshadow all other priorities during Gates' talks.

Gibbs said that North Korea was continuing to violate international treaties in the wake of the nuclear detonation and threats to attack South Korea for joining a U.S.-led security program.

"Threats won't get North Korea the attention it craves," Gibbs told reporters at the White House. "Their actions are continuing to further deepen their own isolation from the international community and from their rights and obligations that they themselves have agreed to live up to."

South Korea had resisted joining the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, a network of nations seeking to stop ships from transporting materials used in nuclear bombs. It joined the coalition after Monday's bomb test -- a move that North Korea described Wednesday as akin to a declaration of war.

Nicholas Szechenyi, a northeast Asia policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Gates likely would focus on the security agreement and other programs to stem nuclear proliferation while in Singapore. But he said many operations steps by Washington to hobble Pyongyang likely would not be taken any time soon.

Szechenyi said joint U.S.-South Korea maritime exercises would probably not happen immediately. "You want to respond to North Korea but not provoke them, so I would not expect this immediately," he said.

Arnold Kanter, a former undersecretary of state in George H.W. Bush's administration, called North Korea's behavior "erratic and delusional" as well as "very threatening."

Gates is scheduled to visit the Philippine capital in Manila and will possibly discuss U.S. troop levels stationed there. He also planned to stop by two U.S. bases in Alaska on his way back to Washington next week.

The Pentagon was still testing and analyzing particle matter taken from clouds in the region to confirm that the detonation was, indeed, a nuclear explosion. A second senior Pentagon official said U.S. military jets were to take a second sampling later this week.

The atomic test was the North's second in less than three years. It promised to get rid of nuclear weapons in return for economic and security prizes from its neighbors and the West, but talks to make that a reality broke down last year.

Clinton denounced North Korea's "provocative and belligerent" threats and warned Wednesday that the North faces consequences for its nuclear and missile tests. The stern statement underscored the firmness of the U.S. treaty commitment to defend South Korea and Japan, U.S. allies in easy range of the North's missiles.

"North Korea has made a choice," Clinton said, to violate U.N. Security Council resolutions, ignore international warnings and abrogate commitments made during six-nation nuclear disarmament talks. With the United Nations discussing a response aimed at punishing North Korea, Clinton said, "There are consequences to such actions."

Clinton said she was pleased by a unified international condemnation of North Korea that included Russia and China, North Korea's only major ally and the host of the stalled disarmament talks. The success of any new sanctions would depend on how aggressively China implements them.

Despite her tough words, Clinton held out hope that North Korea would return to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks and that "we can begin once again to see results from working with the North Koreans toward denuclearization that will benefit, we believe, the people of North Korea, the region and the world."

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Associated Press writers Foster Klug and Barry Schweid contributed to this report.