N Korean official says bomb test only option

CANBERRA, Oct 4: Threats by the United States to apply economic sanctions against North Korea were a declaration of war forcing Pyongyang to plan a nuclear test, a senior North Korean diplomat in Australia today.

''Now the situation around the Korean peninsula is very tense, it may be breaking out a war at any time I think,'' North Korean embassy spokesman Pak Myong Guk told Reuters in Canberra.

Australia, a close U.S. ally and one of only a few Western countries to have diplomatic ties with North Korea, summoned its ambassador, Chon Jae Hong, to express outrage over the reclusive Stalinist state's threat to conduct its first nuclear test.

Pak said before that meeting that U.S. threats of economic and financial sanctions amounted to ''a proclamation of the war''.

''These kinds of threats of nuclear war and tensions and pressure by the United States compel us to conduct a nuclear test,'' he said.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said officials had warned Chon that Canberra would respond to a North Korean nuclear test with new restrictions on ties with Pyongyang.

''I am outraged that a country that has to rely on the international community to feed its own people devotes so many of its scarce resources to missile and nuclear weapons programs,'' he said in a statement.

Last month, Australia slapped sanctions on 12 companies it said were helping finance North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.

Australian firms are currently free to do business in North Korea, although trade is negligible.

Pyongyang announced yesterday it was planning to carry out its first nuclear test, prompting South Korea to immediately heighten its security alert.

The United States, France and Japan urged the U.N. Security Council to respond to what Washington called ''an unacceptable threat''. China, the Stalinist North's long-time ally, said the issue should be handled instead at currently stalled six-country talks aimed at ending the nuclear standoff on the peninsula.

North Korea has boycotted the talks -- also including South Korea, China, the United States, Russia and Japan -- since last November, refusing to return until Washington ends a financial clampdown on its international financial dealings.

Washington, meanwhile, rejects North Korea's demand for one-on-one talks until it returns to the six-party forum.

As China urged restraint by all concerned, Australian Prime Minister John Howard called on the United Nations to act.

''The rest of the world regards them, in a diplomatic way, as an international outlaw,'' he said.

Reuters

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