North Korea's missile a provocation: US

Describing North Korea's missile tests as a "provocation" that has raised the world's concern, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday said Pyongyang had miscalculated the unity of the international community on the issue.

She stressed that any issue with North Korea has only to be addressed through the framework of the six-party talks and not in any bilateral fashion between Washington and Pyongyang.

The Secretary of State made her first official comments on the North Korean crisis as the Bush administration sought to not only get into the specifics of the missile firings over the last several hours but also try and come to an understandings on what it is that the North Korean leader might want though such an action.

"The effect their actions are having ...throughout the world, not just in the region but in NATO, and countries all over the world are concerned about this provocation that the North Koreans have engaged in. It especially demonstrates to North Koreans that they perhaps miscalculated that the international community would remain united. There has been a very strong response to their actions," Rice said.

At the State Department after a meeting with the Foreign Minister of Turkey, Rice said she would not want to speculate on the motivations of North Korea over the missile tests or firings.

"I wouldn't even begin to try," Rice said, adding that North Korea must understand the global implications of their actions.

"So whatever their motivation, whatever they thought they were doing, they have gotten a very strong reaction from the international community," she added.

Rice also stressed that if Pyongyang was hoping to get the attention of Washington in a bilateral fashion, that is not going to work for the issue remained at the six-party talks.

"...the six party talks provide now a diplomatic infrastructure that can be used to resolve problems of this kind. And it would still be incumbent on the North Koreans to use that kind of infrastructure to address these issues ...it is now not a matter of the United States and North Korea, it is really a matter of the region saying to North Korea that it has to change its behaviour," she said.

"As to what steps will be taken to reverse North Korean behaviour to address the nuclear issue, that is what we are going to talk about in the next couple of days.

"But the international community does have at its disposal a number of tools to make it more difficult for North Korea to engage in this kind of brinksmanship and engage in the continued pursuit of its nuclear weapons programme and of its missile programme," she added.