N Korea raps Japan as US seeks action

The United States has stumbled in attempts to impose UN sanctions on North Korea over the July 4 missile tests because of opposition from Russia and China -- echoing the Security Council split over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Kyodo news agency said that China -- about the nearest the reclusive communist state has to an international ally -- had drafted a UN Security Council "statement" in a bid to counter efforts to pass a stronger resolution.

The last time North Korea fired a missile, in 1998, the Security Council ended up issuing a tepid statement that did not chastise Pyongyang or lead to sanctions.

Defying near-universal condemnation of its latest firings, North Korea has vowed to carry out more launches and has said it will use force if the international community tries to stop it.

On Friday, it threatened "stronger actions" against Japan -- which proposed the resolution after the missiles splashed into the sea off its west coast -- if its sanctions were not lifted.

Japan has banned a North Korean ferry from entering its ports for six months as part of a package of initial sanctions.

"This may force us to take stronger physical actions," Kyodo news agency quoted Song Il-ho, North Korea's ambassador in charge of diplomatic normalisation talks with Japan, as saying.

Asked by Japanese reporters in Pyongyang to elaborate, he said: "I leave that to your imagination."

North Korea's councillor at the UN mission in Geneva, Choe Myong-nam, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that Wednesday's volley of missiles were "not an attack on someone" and defended Pyongyang's right to such launches.

"From an international point of view, it is not fair to say who can do one thing and who can't," Choe said. "The same applies to possessing nuclear weapons."

Washington's envoy on North Korea, Christopher Hill, began a tour of North Korea's neighbours to forge a united front. But there was no apparent breakthrough on his first stop, Beijing.

The Xinhua news agency quoted State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan as telling Hill merely that Beijing would "keep close contact with concerned sides to preserve peace and stability in the Korean peninsula, realize denuclearisation there and push forward the six-party talks on the Korean peninsula nuclear issue."

In February 2005, North Korea said it possessed nuclear weapons. Since then, it threatened several times to bolster its nuclear arsenal to counter what it sees as US hostility.