US `stuck' if N Koreans don't return to six-party talks

The US is looking at new ways of forcing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons but analysts said Tuesday it has little room for maneuver if the current six-party talks remain snagged.

Any move for international sanctions against Pyongyang, they said, would have to be done via the UN Security Council, but this had already been opposed by China and Russia and was expected to be rejected even by US allies Japan and South Korea.

North Korea meanwhile continues to say it will return to negotiations only if the conditions are right -- meaning the US has to sweeten its offer on the table.

But Washington has ruled out giving any new incentives upfront to Pyongyang in return for disarmament, apart from endorsing a multilateral security guarantee and energy aid by the Stalinist state's neighbors.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who held meetings last week with Chinese, South Korean and Japanese leaders, has warned that North Korea faced "problems" if it failed to return to the six-party talks and that Washington was looking at "other options."

This was seen by analysts as a strong hint that Washington might resort to sanctions against the hardline communist state, a move that was flatly rejected by veto-wielding powers Moscow and Beijing three years ago.

Japan is also unlikely to back any US move on sanctions until at least another round of talks is held to break the nuclear impasse, Hideshi Takesada, from Japan's National Institute of Defense Studies, told a forum in Washington.

"If we want to have decisive sanctions, China should join and also ROK [South Korea] should join.

"But China will say `no' to discuss or argue the North Korean nuclear issue in the United Nations, China will say `no' to participate in the proliferation security initiative and China will say `no' to join in any economic sanctions with Japan and the United States," Takesada said.

He added that Rice could set the stage for the US to seek UN support for its proliferation security initiative (PSI) against North Korea.

China is not part of the US-led PSI, aimed primarily at checking trafficking of weapons of mass destruction.

Host to the six-party talks, China is a key ally of and top aid provider to cash-strapped North Korea. But it has not been using full leverage against the reclusive state, accused of nuclear proliferation and other illicit activities.

Meanwhile, Chinese officials say North Korea's premier has told them Pyongyang might be willing to return to nuclear talks, despite the North's threat to indefinitely boycott the dialogue and claims that it has expanded its atomic arsenal.

"If conditions are right in the future, North Korea is willing at any time to participate at the six-party talks," Premier Pak Pong-ju told his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), on Tuesday, according to a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

The spokesman, Liu Jianchao (劉建超), didn't say what those conditions would be. But the North has demanded in the past that the US end its "hostile policy" and apologize for having referred to it as an outpost of tyranny. The North said last month that it was boycotting the talks indefinitely.