South Korea and China were urged to take a tougher line on North Korea yesterday after Washington warned that Pyongyang would pay a price if it launched a ballistic missile.
South Korea said that North Korea was not bluffing and appeared to be seriously planning a missile launch after US Vice President Dick Cheney resisted calls for a pre-emptive attack on the isolated state.
A top US defense official said, however, that Pyongyang would have to pay a price if it went ahead with the launch.
"If such a launch takes place, we would seek to impose some cost on North Korea," Peter Rodman, US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said in Washington.
Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok, the minister responsible for handling North Korean relations, said Pyongyang appeared to have made a tactical miscalculation, thinking that it could use a missile launch to force a change in US hardline policy towards the regime over the nuclear standoff.
"The United States will not make a compromise even if North Korea fires a missile," he said in parliament.
China and South Korea came under fire from outgoing US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who blamed their soft line on North Korea for the stalemate in efforts to end the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program.
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