Rice: N. Korea Must Stop Stalling on Nukes

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SEOUL, South Korea - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said an international coalition remains committed to negotiating an end to North Korea (news - web sites)'s nuclear weapons program, but warned Saturday that North Korea cannot stall forever.


AP

Rice also appealed to China, communist North Korea's closest ally, to use its leverage to bring North Korea back to disarmament talks.


"We are committed to diplomacy, but I think it goes without saying that no one is going to be prepared to allow the North Koreans to just go down a road that threatens everyone," Rice said.


"We have been very careful to have people choose their own diplomatic paths and their own mix of incentives and leverage to deal with the North Korean problem," she said.


Rice spoke from Tokyo before flying to South Korea (news - web sites), which is still technically at war with the North five decades after active fighting ended in the Korean War.


In South Korea, Rice became the most senior American official to tour a semisecret command center for U.S. and South Korean troops that would be the battle headquarters for a fight with Pyongyang.


"I know that you face a close-in threat every day," Rice told the troops at Command Post Tango, an acronym that stands for Theater Air Naval Ground Operations.


Rice's visit, which coincided with a twice-yearly war exercise with thousands of American and South Korean troops, also marked the first time reporters and cameras were allowed into the bunker, built into a mountain south of Seoul.


North Korea denounced the exercises as a rehearsal for a U.S.-led pre-emptive attack on the isolated state.


"The Republic of Korea, a great democracy now, faces a threat across the divide of a state that is not democratic, that is not free, and that does not have the best interests of its people at heart," Rice said.


The North Koreans have not responded to a U.S.-backed peacemaking proposal. Pyongyang has complained that Rice unfairly labeled the country an "outpost of tyranny" earlier this year, and demanded an apology.


North Korea has said it wants nuclear weapons as a defense against a potential attack from U.S. and South Korean forces. President Bush (news - web sites) has said the United States has no intention of attacking North Korea, a message Rice has repeated often during a weeklong tour of Asia.


The United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China began a joint diplomatic effort with North Korea aimed at persuading the country to give up its nuclear program.


But those six-nation talks, hosted by China, have been stalled since September, when the North Koreans pulled out and refused to return to discussions. North Korea announced last month it has already built a nuclear weapon.


Rice and other U.S. officials are working to keep the coalition intact.


Answering questions from the audience after a speech Saturday, Rice said she knows there is some international frustration with the slow pace of North Korean talks. But she said the six-party discussions remain the best option. She rejected a suggestion that the United States might make more progress if it dealt with North Korea one-on-one.


"We bring different incentives, different leverage to North Korea, each of us. ... I would be first to admit it is not easy to deal with North Korea," Rice said.