Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 21, 1994 TAG: 9403210050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
But President Clinton said there was still "some hope" that North Korea would allow inspections of its nuclear sites and avoid international sanctions.
"There appear to be people within North Korea that want to proceed to normalize the relations of their country with the international community and people who don't. We'll just have to see what they do now - where we go from here," Clinton said.
Christopher predicted that China would not block sanctions against North Korea despite its recent quarrel with the United States over human rights because it is in China's national interest that North Korea not become a nuclear power.
Christopher, speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," also said the government would talk to South Korea about basing Patriot missiles there, and reviving large joint military exercises that were to have been postponed as a gesture of good will to North Korea.
He said there were no immediate plans to increase the 37,000 American troops in South Korea, but "we'll be looking at that situation day in and day out."
"We hear some fairly strong rhetoric coming out of North Korea, but we have to do what's in our interest. We have to protect our troops," Christopher said on CNN's "Late Edition." "We won't be unnecessarily provocative. We don't seek a confrontation. But we want to be ready for one."
Clinton was asked if the situation was in danger of escalating into a military conflict. "I'm not trying to ratchet up the tensions," he told reporters. "I'm just trying to work through this in a very deliberate but very firm and disciplined way."
Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., told NBC's "Meet the Press" that "we may also want to beef up our own forces there" in what he said was "probably the most serious thing on the radar screen now."
House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri, on the same show, said, "I think we ought to have aircraft carriers in the region. We might ultimately send more troops to beef up the South Korean side."
The International Atomic Energy Agency was to meet today to announce findings on its recent nuclear inspection tour of North Korea, during which the Koreans barred its agents from looking at facilities suspected of housing a nuclear weapons program.
Christopher predicted the agency would find the inspections inadequate and report the matter to the United Nations. He said the United States would push the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution on North Korea and is "preparing for trade sanctions."
Dole, who has supported the extension of most-favored-nation status to China, said that if the Chinese refuse to support the United States on North Korea, "then I think we would have to go back and take another look."
Keywords:
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Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro.