Rice hopes Pyongyang will not conduct second test

WASHINGTON, Oct 16 (Reuters) US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today she hoped North Korea would not conduct a second nuclear test, saying this would be a provocative act and would further isolate the country.

''That would further deepen the isolation of North Korea and and I hope they would not take such a provocative act,'' Rice told reporters in a briefing before leaving on Tuesday on a trip to Japan, South Korea and China.

Rice said the United States was open to resuming six-party talks with North Korea on ending its nuclear ambitions without any preconditions. The United Nations Security Council voted 15-0 on Saturday for tough sanctions against North Korea after it announced it had tested a nuclear device on October. 9.

She also said she wanted to reassure US allies like South Korea and Japan that the United States was willing and able to meet its security commitments to them.

Rice stressed that countries in the region must act together to prevent North Korea -- which has a long history of selling its ballistic missile technology -- from nuclear proliferation.

''We and our partners must expand defensive measures to counter North Korea's full array of illicit and proliferation activities,'' Rice said.

She said she wanted to send a signal to Iran it could suffer if it kept pursuing nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful power generation and Washington and its allies are pressing for UN sanctions against Tehran.

''The Iranian government is watching and it can now see that the international community will respond to threats from nuclear proliferation,'' Rice said. ''So the Iranian government should consider the course that it is on, which could lead ... simply to further isolation.'' REUTERS SRS PM0020