Tuesday, 10 October, 2006

Nine MSN

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has told North Korea's ambassador to Australia that the government will support sanctions against the regime (Getty Images)

North Korea's ambassador to Australia says his country is facing the threat of nuclear war.

Questioned by reporters on his way into Parliament House to meet with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, ambassador Chon Jae Hong said his country had developed nuclear weapons for security reasons.

"We are under extreme threat of United States of nuclear war," Mr Chon said.

The ambassador was summoned to meet Mr Downer so Australia could register its protest at the secretive regime's first nuclear weapons test.

Mr Chon did not comment to the waiting media as he left Parliament House after his meeting with Mr Downer.

Downer told Mr Chon that the government will support sanctions against the regime in response to its first nuclear weapons test.

Mr Downer told reporters after his meeting with the ambassador that Australia had registered its anger about the test with the regime.

"I told him that this wouldn't improve North Korea's security, on the contrary this action of North Korea has led to a deterioration in the security environment of north Asia," Mr Downer told reporters.

"I told the ambassador also that we would be supporting the United Nations security council sanctions under chapter 7," Mr Downer said.

"We were urging our friends and allies in the United Nations to pass a resolution imposing sanctions under chapter 7."

Mr Downer said North Koreans would only be issued visas to visit Australia in exceptional circumstances and individual visas would have to be approved personally by him as minister.

He said he told Mr Chon that North Korea had humiliated its closest ally, China, with the test.

"I said it was one thing to be offensive to the United States and Britain and Australia and their allies, but it's another thing to treat the Chinese, who have been such stalwart supporters of North Korea for such a long time, in this way," he said.

"North Korea have humiliated the Chinese government.

"The Chinese government had been working intensely to try to stop this testing taking place."

Mr Downer said China provided 80 per cent of North Korea's humanitarian aid and half of the reclusive Stalinist state's trade was with China.

"The North Koreans have treated China extremely shabbily in this particular situation," Mr Downer said.

Mr Downer said Australia was not considering expelling the ambassador but other sanctions would be put in place.

"North Korea depends on food aid from the international community, including from Australia, to keep its people alive while it spends billions and billions of dollars developing nuclear weapons," he said.

Mr Downer said Australia had decided to keep diplomatic channels of communication open with North Korea despite the nuclear test.

"It's a hard call, really," he said.

"In the end I decided that we may as well maintain some form of dialogue with the North Koreans so at least they know that we stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies in the international community."

Mr Downer earlier said the Australian government had received no intelligence that North Korea was planning a second nuclear test.

He said he had no indication another nuclear test was imminent.

"There is a lot of divided opinion about the strength of the first test and the effectiveness of the first test, but we have no intelligence at this stage about a second test," Mr Downer told ABC radio.

Mr Downer also said the fact that North Korea had started developing long-range missiles that could reach Australia also was a reminder of the sort of dangerous regime that the international community was dealing with.

"In certain circumstances, presumably Kim Jong-il is capable of using nuclear weapons, otherwise he wouldn't develop them - obviously that's a matter of enormous concern."

The North Korea crisis also was very different from the issue of weapons of mass destruction which Iraq was accused of hiding, Mr Downer said.

"Iraq had failed to comply with a whole series of UN Security Council resolutions.

"In the case of North Korea, they've walked out of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which they are entitled to do. What they've done is not contrary to international law, but it is contrary to international decency," Mr Downer said.

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown says he will also contact the North Korean ambassador to add his voice to the torrent of international condemnation following the Stalinist state's first nuclear test.

Senator Brown said the test, conducted underground, represented a significant escalation of tensions in north Asia.

"I'll be contacting the North Korean ambassador today to add the Greens' condemnation to the repudiation of this testing path," Senator Brown told reporters.

"A nuclear option would lead to a much wider conflagration on the Korean peninsula and regionally, but there's a very difficult balancing act between sanctions on North Korea but continuing dialogue."

The UN Security Council called an emergency meeting following confirmation of the test and is now considering imposing tough Chapter 7 sanctions which leave open the possibility of war.

Senator Brown said the nuclear test was proof the government should reconsider its push into the global uranium market.

"The Greens are mightily concerned about nuclear weapons spreading in our region and that's why we believe the government should review its plan to export more uranium into a dangerous world where nuclear technology has taken the wrong course."