North Korea 'prepared For War' by Stephen Lunn The Australian 4:24pm 5th Apr, 2003   April 05, 2003    NORTH Korea's nuclear standoff with the US had the potential to escalate into a war with "unthinkable consequences", a senior UN official warned yesterday.    Maurice Strong, a special adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said he believed communist North Korea was "prepared to go to war if they believe the security and integrity of their nation is really threatened, and they do".    "There is a real potential for this escalating into conflict," Mr Strong said on his return from Pyongyang as a UN special envoy.    "I think war is unnecessary, unthinkable in its consequences, and yet it is entirely possible."    North Korea is suspected of possessing at least two nuclear bombs.    "So much of this often arises from a breakdown of trust, a breakdown of confidence, an inability to read the real intentions of signals of others," Mr Strong said.    Pyongyang's media outlets have bombarded the world in recent months with harsh anti-US rhetoric and statements the reclusive Government of Kim Jong-il expects to be the next in line for military conflict after the Iraq conflict is resolved.    Much is dismissed as breast-beating propaganda, but Mr Strong's comments after speaking to top North Korean officials were a telling insight into the growing seriousness of this security threat in northeast Asia.    They come just ahead of a critical closed-session UN Security Council meeting scheduled for Wednesday to discuss the North Korean nuclear crisis.    The US referred the matter to the UN after Pyongyang earlier this year expelled UN inspectors from its decommissioned nuclear power plants, announced its intention to withdraw from the global nuclear non-proliferation treaty and vowed to restart a nuclear reactor capable of producing enough weapons-grade plutonium to build up to six atomic bombs by mid-year. Washington wants a UN statement condemning North Korea.    China, a permanent member of the 15-nation Security Council with close ties to the North stretching back to the 1950-53 Korean War, has so far refused to discuss the matter.    North Korea's official withdrawal from the non-proliferation treaty will crystallise a day after the Security Council meeting on Thursday.    Mr Strong said the Iraq war had created grave fears in Pyongyang.    "They paid very close attention and had a lot of concern about this . . . as evidence in their mind that the US is actually now following up and implementing its right of pre-emption against another one of the powers that was designated as a part of the axis of evil," he said.    "They believe from a variety of statements that have been made . . . that they are next on the list. They feel a real sense of threat."    In a speech in January last year setting out his foreign policy agenda, US President George W. Bush described North Korea, Iraq and Iran as an "axis of evil" for their alleged programs to develop and sell weapons of mass destruction.    The ill-feeling continues, with North Korea yesterday accusing the US of committing "genocide" in Iraq.    "The US forces (have) used such weapons of mass destruction . . . killing hundreds of innocent civilians at a time," a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Visit the related web page
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