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PHUKET, Thailand: The United States held out Thursday both incentives and the threat of reprisals in a bid to prod a defiant North Korea into dismantling its nuclear programme once and for all.
The reclusive Stalinist state, US officials said, faces a "stark choice" following its nuclear and missile tests with concern now also mounting that it may be sending conventional arms and even nuclear know-how to Myanmar.
A day after meeting with her Russian, Japanese, South Korean and Chinese counterparts on North Korea, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton planned to showcase the approach in a speech at Asia's largest security forum here.
"Our approach isolates North Korea, imposes meaningful pressure to force changes in its behaviour, and provides an alternative path that would serve everyone's interests," she said in pre-released excerpts from the speech.
In her address to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum, Clinton was to try to tempt North Korea into "full and verifiable denuclearisation" with "significant energy and economic assistance."
But until North Korea builds trust, she said, the United States will "undertake the necessary defensive measures" to protect its interests and those of its allies.
She also reiterated that Kim Jong-Il's administration would not be rewarded "just for returning to the table," which it has in the past only to renege on its disarmament commitments.
She warned that unless Pyongyang gives up its weapons programme, "they will face international isolation and the unrelenting pressure of global sanctions."
In Phuket, Clinton said her ministerial counterparts in the six-party dialogue on North Korea had agreed on the need to enforce still tighter UN sanctions if Pyongyang refuses to take key steps.
Those include dismantling its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and giving up its plutonium stockpile.
North Korea bolted the six-party negotiations after the UN Security Council censured it for a long-range rocket launch in April.
North Korea resumed weapons testing and conducted an underground nuclear test in May, triggering a Security Council resolution for beefed-up inspections of shipments going to and from the country and an expanded arms embargo.
Clinton Wednesday expressed concerns about possible nuclear cooperation between North Korea and Myanmar's military junta, saying that a rogue alliance could destabilise the region.
She referred to the "concerns that are being expressed about cooperation between North Korea and Burma (Myanmar) in the pursuit of offensive weapons, perhaps even including nuclear weapons at some point."
Suspicions escalated after a US Navy destroyer, operating under the tougher UN sanctions, last month began tracking a North Korean ship reportedly heading for Myanmar.
In her speech extracts, Clinton urged North Korea to declare goods it ships abroad. "We are also asking every country to join in demanding transparency from the North Koreans," she added.
Clinton and President Barack Obama were meanwhile coming under greater pressure back in Washington.
The US Senate on Wednesday called North Korea a "threat" to its neighbours and pushed for a formal review to see whether the Obama administration should return the secretive regime to a US terrorism blacklist.
President George W. Bush's administration removed North Korea from the list in October 2008 as part of Washington's stop-start diplomacy on the nuclear question.
- AFP/yb
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