Sanctions Against N. Korea Weighed

The Security Council began weighing a U.S. draft resolution to impose potentially crippling sanctions on North Korea after the secretive communist nation claimed to have set off an atomic explosion, drawing widespread international condemnation including from its closest allies.

The Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea's decision to flout its appeal not to carry out a test and urged Pyongyang to refrain from further nuclear blasts, return to six-party talks and keep its pledge to scrap its clandestine weapons program.

President Bush called the North Korean announcement provocative and unacceptable, though he said Washington is still trying to confirm the test. Nonetheless, Pyongyang's actions "constitutes a threat to international peace and security" and requires "an immediate response" from the Security Council, he said.

Soon after, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton asked the council to adopt a very strong resolution imposing new sanctions against the North aimed at curbing its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, prohibiting all trade in military and luxury goods, and preventing "any abuses of the international financial system" that could contribute to the transfer or development of banned weapons.

The United States circulated a draft resolution late Monday that would condemn the test, demand that North Korea immediately return to six-party talks without precondition, and impose sanctions for Pyongyang's "flagrant disregard" of the council's appeal not to detonate a device. The draft, obtained by the Associated Press, was based on proposals circulated earlier Monday.

Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the current council president, said all council members "emphasized that the response of the council should be strong, swift and very, very clear in its message and its action."

But just how long it will take members to agree on a resolution remains to be seen.

"There are several levels of negotiations still ongoing to get to an agreement on a sanctions resolution regarding North Korea, including meetings of the experts and of the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Japan, planned for Tuesday," CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk reports from the U.N. "But there is consensus that a tough document will emerge because the greater concern is the perception that an international arms race will result if not enough is done."

The Bush administration repeatedly has said it has no plans to invade North Korea and military action appeared unlikely. But the U.S. proposed stringent U.N. sanctions on Monday, including a trade ban on military and luxury items, the power to inspect all cargo entering or leaving the country, and freezing assets connected with Pyongyang's weapons programs, according to a copy of the draft obtained by The Associated Press.

But CBS News national security correspondent David Martin says the U.S. government's response may include a naval blockade of North Korea. Martin said the North doesn't have the capability to launch a nuclear-tipped missile yet, making the primary concern the possibility that Pyongyang might export nuclear material or technology to nations such as Iran or Syria, or to a terrorist group.

North Korea's U.N. ambassador Pak Gil Yon said the Security Council should congratulate his country instead of passing "useless" resolutions or statements.

Iranian state radio, meanwhile, blamed North Korea's reported nuclear test on U.S. pressure, saying the test "was a reaction to America's threats and humiliation."

Iran has said it will not abandon uranium enrichment despite the threat of international sanctions over its disputed nuclear program, which Tehran insists is purely for peaceful purposes.

Mr. Bush said the United States was still attempting to confirm that a nuclear test had actually taken place. Still, he said, "such a claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and security."

A U.S. government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the situation, said the seismic event could have been a nuclear explosion, but its small size was making it difficult for authorities to pin down.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service chief Kim Seung-kyu reportedly told lawmakers signs of suspicious movement were spotted at another suspected test site.

The current members of the nuclear club are the United States, Russia, Britain, France, India, Pakistan and China. Israel is widely believed to have the bomb but has not publicly declared that it does.

Reports about the size of the explosion were conflicting. Only Russia said the blast was a nuclear explosion, but the reaction of world governments reflected little doubt that they were treating the announcement as fact.

"We have no doubts that it (the test) was nuclear," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

Nuclear blasts give off clear seismic signatures that differentiate them from other explosions, said Friedrich Steinhaeusler, a professor of physics at Salzburg University. Even if the bomb the North Koreans detonated was small, sensors in South Korea would likely be close enough to categorize the explosion as nuclear, he said.

"I think we have to take them at their word. They're not the type of regime to bluff," said Peter Beck, a Seoul-based analyst for conflict resolution think tank International Crisis Group.

Although North Korea has long claimed it had the capability to produce a bomb, the test would be the first manifest proof that it had done so. A nuclear armed North Korea would dramatically alter the strategic balance of power in the Pacific region and would undermine already fraying global anti-proliferation efforts.

"The development and possession of nuclear weapons by North Korea will in a major way transform the security environment in North Asia and we will be entering a new, dangerous nuclear age," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a news conference in Seoul after a summit with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.

Abe, facing his first major foreign policy test since his recent election, called for a "calm yet stern response." Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso warned such a test would "severely endanger not only Northeast Asia but also the world stability."

South Korea said it had put its military on high alert, but it had noticed no unusual activity among North Korea's troops.

China, the North's closest ally and its main source of food, expressed its "resolute opposition" to the reported test and urged the North to return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks. It said the North "defied the universal opposition of international society and flagrantly conducted the nuclear test."

Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Cabinet that Moscow "certainly condemns the test conducted by North Korea."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the test was a "completely irresponsible act."

Meanwhile, Security Council members demanded North Korea return to the stalled negotiations on its nuclear program, reports CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod.

But North Korea has refused for a year to attend six-party international talks aimed at persuading it to disarm, calling for the U.S. to drop sanctions it has imposed to punish it for alleged counterfeiting and money laundering. It pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003 after U.S. officials accused it of a secret nuclear program, allegedly violating an earlier nuclear pact between Washington and Pyongyang.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the test was successful, with no leak of radiation.

North Korean scientists "successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions," the government-controlled agency said, adding this was "a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation."

"It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the ... people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability," KCNA said. "It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it."

South Korea said the test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. in Hwaderi near Kilju city on the northeast coast. South Korean intelligence officials said the seismic wave had been detected in North Hamkyung province, the agency said.

North Korea was added to the agenda of an already scheduled Security Council meeting that officially nominated South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary-General, and he said he would work to resolve the North Korean crisis.

The Security Council resolution adopted in July imposed limited sanctions on North Korea and demanded that the reclusive communist nation suspend its ballistic missile program — a demand the North immediately rejected.

The resolution bans all U.N. member states from selling material or technology for missiles or weapons of mass destruction to North Korea — and it bans all countries from receiving missiles, banned weapons or technology from Pyongyang.

North Korea is believed to have enough radioactive material for about a half-dozen bombs. It insists its nuclear program is necessary to deter a U.S. invasion.

North Korea has active missile programs, but it isn't believed to have an atomic bomb design small and light enough to be mounted on a long-range rocket that could strike targets as far as the United States.

South Korea had planned to ship 4,000 tons of cement to the North on Tuesday as emergency relief following massive flooding, but decided to delay it, Yonhap reported, quoting an unidentified Unification Ministry official.

South Korea had said the one-time aid shipment was separate from its regular humanitarian aid to the North, which it halted after Pyongyang's missile launches in July.

Impoverished and isolated North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed its 23 million people since its state-run farming system collapsed in the 1990s following decades of mismanagement and the loss of Soviet subsidies.