The Bush administration has made it clear that it will not accept North Korea as a nuclear power and if Pyongyang is nursing any illusions of membership in a nuclear club, Washington will not be accepting that.
"We're not going to live with a North Korea that's a nuclear power. If the plan by North Korea is to emulate past experiences, where a country explodes a nuclear weapon, announces its membership in the club, and is a member of the nuclear club, we're not going to accept it," Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill said at the National Press Club.
"How we don't accept it is going to be a combination of a lot of things. I think diplomacy has to play a role in that, but I think also that we've just been discussing ways to prevent them from getting the technology, ways to prevent them from getting the financing. I think that is a key part of this. And, ultimately, I have to believe in the logic that these nuclear weapons will leave North Korea more impoverished and less secure than ever before. And, ultimately, I think, and I cannot give you a timeframe for ultimately, we can arrive at a situation where they get out of this business," he said.
Hill was responding to a question if the international community was not already dealing with a nuclear power.
He said that China has not only indicated that the United Nations resolution has to be a signal to North Korea, but also that the resolution would actually be "painful" to the regime in Pyongyang.
Meanwhile, the US military has found preliminary evidence of radioactivity in North Korea, which claimed to have conducted nuclear tests last Monday, the local media has reported quoting unnamed American officials.
The increase in radioactivity has been observed in and around areas where North Korean nuclear sites are located and the United States has been conducting analysis of air over these areas, the reports said.
The determination is that at least one scientific test has been conducted by North Korea.
In the last several days, there have been a raft of rumours that Pyongyang may not have conducted the test and that its pronouncements to this effect were a part of a strategy to fool the world.
Unnamed intelligence officials were cited in media reports questioning if North Korea had the wherewithal to go through with a proper nuclear test.
For the last several days the air force and the military have been pressing all available resources including flying planes over the North Korean areas using satelllites to get confirmation on the claims of Pyongyang.
However, the Bush admininistration, including the White House, has refused to make a definitive statement on the North Korean nuclear testing; and even now unnamed officials are stressing that the so-called confirmation of the testing is only based on "preliminary" data.
The Chinese and Japanese governments have done their own air sampling and found no trace of radioactive material, officials from both countries said on Friday.
The State Department, meanwhile, announced that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to China, South Korea and Japan next week to discuss steps to pressure North Korea to drop its nuclear programme.
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