No intention to attack North, U.S. reiterates

The United States restated its intention to address the North Korean nuclear program through diplomacy, reiterating earlier statements that it will not seek resolution through military action. The announcement amounts to Washington's response to Pyeong-yang's demand for a bilateral nonaggression pact.

"As I made clear during my visit to South Korea in February, the United States has no intention of invading North Korea. This remains the case today," U.S. President George W. Bush said Friday in a statement a day after the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization decided to suspend shipment of fuel oil to the North, beginning next month. Under the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework between Washington and Pyeong-yang, the multilateral consortium was organized to build two nonmilitary reactors in the North and to supply energy aid in return for Pyeongyang freezing its nuclear program. The revelation in October of a clandestine nuclear program in the North prompted KEDO's decision.

Mr. Bush's statement ex-plained the KEDO decision, which was mainly driven by Washington. North Korea is in direct violation of its commitments under previous agreements with the international community, Mr. Bush said. Suspension of oil deliveries is the first direct coercive action against Pyeongyang.

The statement was discussed between Washington and Seoul immediately after KEDO determined to halt the energy aid, a high-ranking diplomat in Washington said. "Mr. Bush's statement, in short, is to calm North Korea." Washington is particularly concerned that Pyeongyang will interpret the suspension of fuel oil as a nullification of the Geneva agreement, the diplomat said.

Seoul welcomed the statement, but North Korea was unhappy. Radio Pyeongyang repeated Sunday its demand that Washington sign a bilateral nonaggression treaty, calling Mr. Bush's statement "a deceptive way of disarming and pressing North Korea."

The European Union is re-viewing additional sanctions against North Korea, including suspension of food aid, EU diplomats said Friday. Such a step could be crippling in a country where, according to an estimate Saturday by James Morris, the World Food Program's executive director, 6.4 million people -- more than a quarter of the population -- are starving as the international community's food donations dwindle.

Foreign ministers of Europe will meet next week to review sus-pending multimillion-dollar hu-manitarian aid packages and withdrawing the North's trade privileges with the EU countries. European trade is worth nearly $300 million a year to North Korea.

Pyeongyang continued to bark at the international community, especially Japan. A Foreign Ministry spokesman threatened Saturday that Pyeongyang is running out of patience and may renounce its promise to extend a missile-test moratorium beyond the previously declared expiration of 2003.

by Ser Myo-ja