February 15, 2003	Saturday	Zul Hijjah 13, 1423

SEOUL, Feb 14: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Wednesday declared North Korea to be in breach of UN safeguards and referred the crisis to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

But IAEA head Mohammed ElBaradei said that members were in no rush to impose such punitive measures — a move Pyongyang has said would amount to a declaration of war.

North Korea on Friday denounced the move as “unreasonable”.

In the first official response to the decision, state media said the UN body no longer has any jurisdiction over the nuclear issue after Pyongyang pulled out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty last month.

“The IAEA interfered in the ‘nuclear issue’ of the DPRK (North Korea), ignorant of its status in which it withdrew from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, only to provoke derision of the public,” the official Korean Central News Agency said.

“It is an interference in the affair of the DPRK for the IAEA to discuss its ‘nuclear issue’ as it is unreasonable from a legal point of view and in the light of usage of international relations.”

The crisis erupted in October after Washington accused North Korea of running a secret uranium-enrichment programme and later cut off fuel aid to the country.

Pyongyang responded by expelling UN inspectors, pulling out of the non-proliferation treaty and reactivating a mothballed plant capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium over the past two months.

South Korean president-elect Roh Moo-Hyun on Friday called for dialogue with North Korea as Washington appealed for concerted international pressure to help disarm the Stalinist state.

Roh, who will succeed outgoing president Kim Dae-Jung on Feb 25, said he would visit Washington for talks with President George W. Bush after his inauguration to find “a reasonable solution” to the crisis.

“I will meet with President Bush and will have close consultations on a reasonable solution to the North’s nuclear issue,” Roh said while speaking to South Korea’s business leaders in Seoul.

Russia and China, seen as the only two powers with any influence with the North, are also pressing Washington to find a bilateral solution.

But the United States sought to share international responsibility for solving the North Korea nuclear showdown.

Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said at a hearing of the House Asia-Pacific subcommittee that he did not envisage the United States pushing for immediate sanctions against Pyongyang.

But the South Korean economy took a direct hit from the nuclear tensions when Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the country’s ratings outlook by two notches to negative this week.

The downgrade hit South Korea’s stock market with a gale force wind and dealt a telling blow to the country’s won currency before the strength of economic fundamentals returned stability to both markets.

“Resolving the North’s nuclear issue, which casts dark clouds over the economy, is directly related to the survival of the whole nation,” Roh said.

On Thursday, Roh stressed South Korea had to remain vigilant to prevent the nuclear crisis from degenerating into a war on the peninsula.

He said although South Korea and the United States differed over how to deal with Pyongyang, Seoul should aim to “prevent the crisis of war by coordinating differences with the United States.”

Roh calls for an equal partnership between the two countries and has pledged not to “kowtow” blindly to Washington.

Rifts have emerged between the two traditional allies, with Seoul calling for direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang to end the four-month dispute.

Washington, which has said no military options have been ruled out, says it will not enter into dialogue with North Korea until Pyongyang abides by agreements restricting its nuclear programme.

ANTI-US SENTIMENT: A majority of South Koreans want US troops out of South Korea, or their presence reduced, a survey showed on Thursday, as a sexual assault case involving US soldiers threatened to rekindle antipathy to Washington.

US troops stationed under a mutual defence pact have been welcomed here as the guardians of peace for five decades since they fought alongside South Korea to repel North Korean and Chinese forces during the 1950-53 Korean War.

The perception, however, has changed dramatically due to resentment stoked by the deaths of two girls killed in a road accident by a US military vehicle last year and Washington’s hardline towards North Korea during the nuclear standoff.—AFP