
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 30, 1994                   TAG: 9405300045
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

KOREA GIVEN WARNING NUNN: `WE DON'T WANT A WAR,' BUT ...

After a breakdown in talks between a U.N. team and North Korea, U.S. lawmakers issued new warnings Sunday about the consequences if the Pyongyang regime does not agree to international monitoring to prevent development of a nuclear weapons program.

Calling the defense of South Korea a "sacred obligation," Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., said the North Korean government's brinkmanship could ultimately endanger its survival.

Pyongyang "should make no mistake about our dedication, our intention and our absolute firmness in continuing the course of making sure they do not become a nuclear weapons state," Nunn said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Tensions heightened this weekend when North Korea announced it would continue unloading spent fuel at its main Yongbyon nuclear reactor, but would "never allow" the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect the facility to determine whether fuel has been secretly diverted from energy to weapons use.

North Korea has repeatedly denied it has any form of nuclear weapons program, but U.S. intelligence agencies believe that enough enriched plutonium has been siphoned off to make one or two crude bombs.

After talks broke down Saturday, part of the agency team left North Korea, abruptly ending the latest effort in the 16-month crisis that has swung erratically between near-calamity and tentative cooperation.

The collapse could open the way for punitive U.N. economic sanctions, which North Korea has said it would treat as an act of war.

"We don't want a war," added Nunn, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. But "if North Korea brings a war in reaction to any kind of sanctions, then they will bring about the destruction of their own country."

For months, the Clinton administration has tried a carrot-and-stick strategy to engage the outlaw state, offering diplomatic and economic incentives in exchange for cooperation on its nuclear program. Pyongyang's latest actions indicate that tactic may have failed.

Nunn said Pyongyang faces three alternatives - and three different responses:

First, cooperation, which would be rewarded with membership in the family of nations through "trade and intercourse."

Second, resisting nuclear weapons monitoring, which would cause "a very serious financial situation, which could lead to their own disintegration."

And third, aggression, which would bring decisive military defeat.

by CNB