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TOKYO: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice again assured Japan on Wednesday that Washington would stand by a commitment to protect its Asian ally and tried to temper concerns of an Asian nuclear arms race after North Korea's nuclear test.
“The United States has the will and the capability to meet the full range, and I underscore full range, of its deterrent and security commitments to Japan,” Rice told a news conference in Tokyo, the first stop on a tour of North Asia.
The United States is worried Japan and South Korea might embark on an arms build-up in response to North Korea developing a nuclear arsenal.
“That is why it is extremely important to go out and reaffirm, and reaffirm strongly, U.S. defense commitments to Japan and to South Korea,” Rice told reporters traveling with her. Referring to an arms race, she said: “We have a lot of means to prevent that from happening.”
Germany also warned that North Korea's underground test of a nuclear device on Oct. 9 and Iran's refusal to rein in its nuclear program could spark regional arms races.
“Both of these provocations can awaken the desire for nuclear weapons among their neighbors. We must prevent this, which is why we're not at the end of this conflict but at the beginning,” Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the German weekly magazine Stern.
Germany, France and Britain are drafting a U.N. Security Council resolution this week that would impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment program. Tehran says the program is for producing electricity.
RICE SEEKS UNIFIED STANCE
Rice will head from Japan to Seoul and Beijing, seeking a unified stance on U.N. sanctions slapped on Pyongyang on Saturday for exploding a nuclear device.
She made her trip as intelligence experts said satellites had spotted a pick-up in activity at the North's suspected test site, suggesting a second blast may be imminent.
The U.S. State Department on Wednesday cast doubt on media reports North Korea's military had informed China it intended to carry out a series of underground nuclear tests.
Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Christopher Hill acknowledged the possibility of further tests but said in an interview with National Public Radio's Morning Edition: “We do not have any indication that it's going to happen imminently.”
U.S. officials said activity seen near suspected test sites is not conclusive.
“Yes, there is activity at several places but it's really difficult to project what it really means,” said one U.S. official, who said he would not characterize the activity as abnormal at the moment.
Another official said, “No one is excluding the possibility of additional tests.”
Japan, a traditional target of Pyongyang's animosity, has seen debate increase over whether to acquire nuclear arms. But Foreign Minister Taro Aso reiterated Tokyo had “absolutely no intentions now of preparing to possess nuclear weapons.”
“There is no need to have nuclear weapons as the Japan-U.S. security framework will be activated for the defense of Japan,” he said. “And Secretary Rice has just reconfirmed that.”
Japan, the only country to have suffered from the effects of nuclear bombing, has long forsworn nuclear weapons.
Hill stressed the risk North Korea would run if it attacked a U.S. ally. “I think North Korea needs to understand that when it attacks treaty allies of the United States it indeed risks very much being at war with the United States,” he said.
Some leading U.S. Democratic senators, including Carl Levin of Michigan, joined a growing chorus of voices calling on the Bush administration to engage in bilateral talks with North Korea.
“Providing our allies and partners want us to talk with the North Koreans, bilaterally, one-on-one, we should do so,” Levin said.
CHINESE ENVOY
Japan's Kyodo news agency reported from Beijing that Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan was in North Korea “on a mission believed to be aimed at resolving the stand-off.”
A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Beijing said she could not confirm the report. Tang, a former foreign minister, visited Washington as President Hu Jintao's special envoy after North Korea's test.
“It makes sense that he'd go there before Rice arrives” in China, said a Western diplomat in China, who asked not to be named. “But I'd worry he's going there as much to reassure the North Koreans as threaten them.”
Rice goes to South Korea on Thursday and Beijing on Friday to push for enforcement of the U.N. sanctions, particularly the inspection of North Korean cargo to intercept weapons and weapons parts.
China, North Korea's biggest trading partner and the closest it has to an ally, backed the Council resolution.
(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz, Jonathan Thatcher, Kang Shinhye and Hong Ki-soo in Seoul, Chris Buckley in Beijing, George Nishiyama, Elaine Lies and Teruaki Ueno in Tokyo, Louis Charbonneau in Berlin, and Arshad Mohammed, David Morgan and Andrew Gray in Washington)
