U.S. Pushes For Enforcement Of Sanctions

The United States on Sunday pressed China to enforce the United Nations' punishment against North Korea and use economic leverage to persuade Beijing's communist ally to renounce its nuclear weapons program and rejoin international disarmament talks.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the chief U.S. diplomat, readied for talks in Asia this week, aware of concerns that the U.N. Security Council's resolution might enflame tensions among countries already on edge from North Korea's claimed nuclear test Oct. 9.

Already, sharp divisions have arisen over enforcing the resolution, approved unanimously on Saturday. China, which voted for the penalties, is balking at cargo inspections to prevent trafficking of certain banned weapons and technology.

"I don't think anybody wants to create conflict," Rice said on CBS's Face The Nation. "But China is a party now to an international resolution, a Security Council resolution that demands very clear cooperation of member states to make certain that dangerous goods are not getting in and out of North Korea."

The United States' U.N. ambassador portrayed last week's detonation as a public humiliation for China, which shares a long border with North Korea and is the North's chief ally and supplier of crucial shipments of food and energy aid. An air sampling taken after the blast detected radioactivity consistent with an atomic explosion, Bush administration and congressional officials said Friday.

If China were to cut its support, John Bolton said, it "would be powerfully persuasive in Pyongyang," the North's capital. "They've not yet been willing to do it. I think that China has a heavy responsibility here."

Bolton said North Korea's apparent nuclear test "had to have been humiliating to China. ... And I think we're still seeing that play out."

Rice, who joined Bolton in making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows in Washington, leaves Tuesday to consult with Asian allies about the resolution. "I understand that people are concerned about how it might work so it doesn't enhance tensions in the region, and we're perfectly willing to have those conversations," Rice said.

She said an embargo against North Korea "is a very important tool that the international community can use. But we'll want to use it in a way that does not enhance the possibility for open conflict."

Japan and Australia have pledged immediate enforcement of the penalties and said they were considering harsher measures on their own. South Korea, which has taken a conciliatory approach to the North and has provided its neighbor with aid, said it would abide by the resolution's terms but did not say how.

The resolution, which demands that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program, also forbids any country from trading nuclear material with North Korea, reported CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante. It also bans luxury goods, a provision aimed at the extravagant habits of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-Il.

"Intense negotiations, beginning last Sunday with North Korea's weapons test, produced a unanimous vote on a Resolution that reassured the Chinese and the Russians that there would be no military force used without a return to the Security Council," CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk said.

After the resolution passed, North Korea's U.N. ambassador accused council members of a "gangster-like" action that neglects the nuclear threat posed by the United States. Pak Gil Yon also said that if the U.S. keeps up the pressure, North Korea "will continue to take physical countermeasures considering it as a declaration of war."

Rice responded: "The North Koreans say a lot of things. The most important thing is that they're again trying to make this an issue between the United States and North Korea. Quite clearly, it's not."

China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, said his country "strongly urges the countries concerned to adopt a prudent and responsible attitude in this regard and refrain from taking any provocative steps that may intensify the tensions."

A leading Senate Republican urged direct talks with North Korea, as the reclusive nation has sought. But Rice brushed aside such calls, reaffirming the U.S. commitment to the six-nation disarmament talks, which have stalled.

"It is so important not to allow this to become a bilateral negotiation, because the North would like nothing better than to simply deal with the United States so that we are the ones that isolate it," Rice said.

Countries such as China and South Korea "that have real leverage will now put enormous pressure on North Korea to come back to" the talks, she said.

Yet Chuck Hagel, the second-ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the United States should not dismiss the idea of one-on-one negotiations with North Korea.

"Great powers engage. We do need to engage the North Koreans" because the U.N. resolution is weak and limited, Hagel said.

"We are the adult power in the world. It is because of the United States, our action or inaction, that there will be a resolution here," Hagel said.

Should North Korea persist along the path of building a nuclear arsenal, Bolton said, the U.S. will "ratchet up the pressure, make it clear that their international isolation is only going to increase, and we're going to make it, to the extent we can, impossible for them to continue the program."

Critics said the U.N. penalties will not curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions and stemmed from what they saw as President George W. Bush's failed foreign policy.

Democratic Sen. John Kerry said the Bush administration is "living in a complete fantasy with respect to the foreign policy they put in place. It is a failure." He said U.S. involvement in Iraq has undermined America's credibility to deal with nuclear threats in North Korea and Iran.