U.S. Issues North Korea A Warning

The United States has bluntly warned North Korea not to test a nuclear weapon, ratcheting up pressure on the isolated, communist-led nation to abandon its nuclear program.

"We are not going to live with a nuclear North Korea," Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Wednesday, using the strongest comments by a U.S. official since the North triggered global alarm Tuesday by announcing that it would undertake a nuclear test.

The United States has sent a message of "deep concern" to the North through diplomatic channels at the United Nations in New York, Hill said. He did not elaborate on the message, except to say the North Koreans had received it and had not yet responded.

"If they think that by exploding a weapon that somehow we will come to terms with it, we won't," Hill told reporters after an appearance at Johns Hopkins University's School of International Studies in Washington.

The North Korean announcement gave no date for any test, but U.S. intelligence agencies are keeping close watch over activity at possible test sites in the North.

A U.S. military plane capable of detecting radiation took off from southern Japan Thursday, a news report said Thursday.

The plane, which can collect and analyze radiation in the air, took off from the U.S. air base at Kadena on the southern island of Okinawa, Kyodo News agency reported.

The plane is believed to be monitoring for signs of a possible nuclear test by the North, Kyodo said. No other information was immediately available.

"North Korea is upping the ante, pressing the international community to meet its demand to lift financial sanctions," says CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk. "There is not consensus on the Security Council at this point to press Pyongyang beyond urging them back to the six-party talks."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that Moscow was working with the government of North Korea to try to dissuade it from testing a nuclear weapon.

"We must do everything so that that doesn't happen," Lavrov said during a news conference on a visit to Warsaw. "We are working with the leadership of North Korea to stop steps that could negatively impact the situation."

The North's declared intention to conduct a nuclear test has sent shock waves through the three Asian countries most concerned: South Korea, Japan and China, and each for different reasons according to CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen in Tokyo.

In Japan, newly-installed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, "we simply could not accept" a North Korean nuclear test.

And yet, Petersen reports, the threat itself plays into the policies of Abe and the increasing voices in Japan arguing for an end to the country's pacifist constitution.

Abe, the first Japanese prime minister born after World War II, has talked of his country needing a military capable of attacking North Korea if a missile aimed at Japan were to be detected.

The notion runs counter to the American-dictated, post-war constitution that renounced force and allowed a Japanese military for self-defense only.

Abe's sentiments are resonating among his fellow members of the Japanese parliament, and find a surprising amount of sympathy with Japan's populace, according to Petersen.

Japan is within range of North Korean missiles (and if the North continues developing a longer-range missile, the same may soon be true for the U.S. West coast). The suggestion that the North may now, or someday soon, have viable nuclear weapons is enough to scare anyone — but especially those already within range.

In South Korea, the threat posed by the North could trump the voices of moderation working to normalize relations with their neighbor across the world's most heavily militarized border.

An actual nuclear testby the North, says Petersen, would almost certainly be the death-knell for those efforts. Plus, Seoul and its millions of people are well within range of thousands of conventional artillery and rocket attacks from the North.

Already a nuclear power, China has no interest in North Korea gaining the same title, and not just because of the North's unpredictable, perhaps unstable leader, Kim Jong Il.

More because a nuclear North Korea would have the potential to start an Asian arms race that could see Japan quickly become a nuclear power, perhaps with U.S. help, perhaps even using U.S. weapons.

This China does not want.

China is on its way to becoming a regional military power in its own right, and has stated ambitions to be the next superpower by the middle of the 21st century, if it even takes that long. Petersen says the last thing China wants is a militarily resurgent Japan that could checkmate its own ambitions.

North Korea meanwhile is not the only dish on the plate for the Bush administration, which is also focused on the war in Iraq, the nuclear ambitions of Iran, and the upcoming midterm elections.

One way to guarantee that North Korea comes to the top of the U.S. agenda, says Petersen, would be for Pyonyang go forward with a nuclear test, after which Asia would never again be the same.