SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea warned yesterday of an "uncontrollable catastrophe" unless the United States agrees to a negotiated solution to a standoff over its nuclear energy and weapons programs.
The statement came as a stiff pre-emptive rebuff to a conciliation-minded, newly elected president in South Korea, and a warning to other countries that their efforts to mediate the crisis will be futile.
"There is no need for any third party to meddle in the nuclear issue on the peninsula," said North Korea's ruling-party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun.
Using the initials for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name, the newspaper continued: "The issue should be settled between the DPRK and the U.S., the parties responsible for it.
"If the U.S. persistently tries to internationalize the pending issue between the DPRK and the U.S. in a bid to flee from its responsibility, it will push the situation to an uncontrollable catastrophe."
And North Korea's Defense Minister Kim Il Chol warned of "merciless punishment" to the United States if it pursues a confrontational approach.
"The U.S. hawks are arrogant enough to groundlessly claim that North Korea has pushed ahead with a 'nuclear program,' bringing its hostile policy toward the DPRK to an extremely dangerous phase," the state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as saying.
Some analysts here saw the defense minister's statement as a defiant response to comments by his U.S. counterpart, Donald H. Rumsfeld, who said Monday that the United States had enough military power in reserve to prevail over North Korea in the event a conflict with that country should occur in the midst of a war with Iraq.
"We're capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other, and let there be no doubt about it," Rumsfeld said.
U.S. officials said yesterday that they suspected North Korea was trying to goad the United States back to the negotiating table after President Bush cut off oil shipments to the energy-starved nation.
"We will not give in to blackmail," State Department spokesman Phil Reeker told the Associated Press.
The North's comments come as Pyongyang accelerates its takeover of nuclear fuel and reactors that were placed under international surveillance by a 1994 agreement with the United States after a crisis similar to the current one.
South Korean officials said North Korea had begun taking steps to reactivate a 5-megawatt nuclear reactor that had been mothballed under the 8-year-old agreement, the so-called Agreed Framework.
North Korea completed the removal of the last International Atomic Energy Agency seals and disabling surveillance cameras at a fuel fabrication plant in Yongbyon, South Korean officials said yesterday.
The facility is technically known as a research reactor, but all along, Western arms control experts have said the purpose of the plant is to produce plutonium for the country's nuclear weapons program.
"There are varying estimates on how long it would take them to reprocess the spent fuel, but they probably have plans to do it a lot faster than outsiders imagine - and will do so if their equipment works," said a U.S. official who has long studied North Korea's nuclear programs.
"Here are a few of the ugly signposts we might whiz pass: asking the inspectors to leave, starting up the reprocessing line, finalizing their withdrawal from the Nonproliferation Treaty, and declaring themselves a nuclear power - with a 'Korean bomb' intended to protect the whole of the Korean people by keeping the Americans from starting a war."
Reflecting the sharp increase in distrust between the United States and South Korea amid a series of major demonstrations against the presence of 37,000 U.S. troops in the country, the official added, "this will cause some secret shivers of pride amongst some in the South."
Both South Korea's departing president, Kim Dae Jung, and the man who will succeed him in February, Roh Moo-hyun, spent most of the day struggling to contain the crisis with North Korea, which threatens to nullify the engagement policies embraced by both men.
"South Korea, the United States, Japan, China, Russia and the European Union are all strongly calling on North Korea to abandon the nuclear program, but the North is not listening now," Kim said during a Cabinet meeting.
Tara Rigler, a State Department spokeswoman, reiterated the Bush administration's position yesterday that the spent fuel rods were "of particular concern because they could be processed to recover plutonium for nuclear weapons."
"They have no relevance for the generation of electricity," Rigler said.
Amid concerns over tensions between Washington and Seoul, Kim appeared to draw closer to the U.S. position on the North, saying there could be no major cooperation unless Pyongyang agreed to international controls on its weapons of mass destruction.
"We can never join hands in the development of nuclear weapons, missiles and other weapons," Kim said.
The incoming president, Roh, spent much of the day meeting with ambassadors of countries that have been involved in the region's crisis.
"The president-elect requested cooperation from those concerned countries to help resolve the North's nuclear issue peacefully," said Roh's spokesman, Lee Nak-hyun.
Roh also spoke by telephone with the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi. The two leaders "agreed to continue close cooperation among Japan, the United States and South Korea to bring about a peaceful solution to nuclear and other security issues regarding North Korea," the ministry said in a statement.