SEOUL: The United States top arms control envoy refused to rule out a military strike on North Korea on Wednesday, saying all options remained on the table to secure Pyongyang’s compliance with nuclear nonproliferation accords.

Raising the stakes in the four-month standoff, John Bolton, a US deputy under-secretary of state, accused the North of “driving a stake through the heart” of the existing energy-for-compliance agreement, and said he expected the issue to be taken up by the United Nations security council by he end of this week.

“North Korea has been going through its blackmail handbook, but we’re not going to play,” said Mr Bolton after meetings in Seoul. “We are not in the marketplace to buy off North Korea’s acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.”

“Pyongyang will never cave in to threats and will respond with an even harder line,” said a North Korean source quoted by Reuters.

Mr Bolton emphasised that the US remained focused on the pursuit of a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. He restated Washington’s willingness to talk directly to Pyongyang, its offer of aid in return for the scrapping of the North’s nuclear programme, and an assurance that America had no invasion plans.

However, when asked whether this ruled out a surgical strike on reactors or military facilities, Mr Bolton answered: “For us, all options are on the table.”

The tough talk highlights growing US impatience with the softly-softly diplomatic approach favoured by South Korea, China, Russia and Japan. North Korean diplomats, who are in Seoul for ministerial talks, insisted on Wednesday that their country had no intention of developing nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang said its actions were a response to a US decision to cut oil supplies, which were guaranteed under the 1994 Agreed Framework document. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service