Seoul welcomes Security Council soft line on Pyongyang nuclear

Seoul welcomes Security Council soft line on Pyongyang nuclear
standoff

SEOUL (AFP): South Korea yesterday welcomed a UN Security
Council statement reflecting the soft Chinese line on the North
Korean nuclear standoff, as Washington said it was beefing up its
defense posture in the South.

"We support the actions and decision of the Security Council
100 percent," South Korean Foreign Minister Han Sung-joo at the
UN in New York.

In Seoul, where tension over the possibility of war has been
palpable, the foreign ministry called the statement "an
appropriate measure" and urged the North to recognize the
"concerns and will of the international community."

Analysts here saw the South Korean reaction as moulded by
worries of a second Korean war and by President Kim Young-sam's
talks with the Chinese leadership in Beijing this week.

At the talks the Chinese, the most trusted ally of the
unpredictable and isolated regime in Pyongyang, warned against
imposing threats or deadlines while saying they would back
international condemnation of North Korea's nuclear program only
if it was couched without threats.

The non-binding Security Council statement -- as opposed to
the binding resolution with threats of sanctions, for which
Britain, France and the United States had fought unsuccessfully
-- urges North Korea to give international inspectors full access
to its suspect nuclear sites.

But it imposes no deadline and carries no direct or indirect
threat of sanctions.

The welcome of the 'Chinese statement' was repeated in Tokyo
-- which is within range of North Korean missiles -- and by the
White House, which said it was "very pleased with the language"
and the fact that China had come forward on the issue.

However a U.S. official told reporters privately that the
United States would have preferred a binding resolution.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Masayoshi Takemura said in Tokyo the
statement underlined "what the international community wants
North Korea to do through dialog."

But though a crisis over the drawn-out, year-long impasse
seemed to have been averted yet again, hard-hitting statements by
U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry, and a wrangle between
Washington and Pyongyang over talks or inspections first, both
kept tension levels high.

Perry, quoted Thursday before the Security Council call was
issued, said the U.S. would stop Pyongyang from building a
nuclear arsenal even if it meant going to war.

North Korea, for its part, insisted that a solution to the
impasse could be found only through normalization talks with the
United States.

Perry told the Washington Post that while war was not
imminent, the Pentagon was readying additional air crews and
ground troops for South Korea, where some 36,000 U.S. troops are
in "trip wire" positions just south of the demilitarized zone.

The U.S. planned no preemptive action, Perry said, but he
feared that possible UN sanctions -- which the North has said it
would consider a declaration of war -- might require the
deployment of additional troops.

The risk of provoking the North, he said, was one he would
rather face than the risk of catastrophe two or three years from
now should the North build its arsenal into a regional threat.

U.S. intelligence agencies believe North Korea has developed
at least one nuclear weapons which Pyongyang denies.