LUXEMBOURG, Feb 10 (AFP) - North Korea`s announcement Thursday that it had produced nuclear arms highlighted the dilemma faced by the United States and its allies as they seek to curb the weapons ambitions of truculent regimes like Pyongyang or Tehran with little diplomatic leverage.
Pyongyang`s announcement, and its insistence it was pulling out of nuclear talks, was no surprise to the Americans, who had assumed since the mid-1990s that the hermetic Stalinist state had been developing its own nuclear capacity.
But perhaps more significant, however, was the fact that Washington appeared to have no immediate response to the North Koreans` latest show of bellicosity, which came at a time when European negotiators were also running into a wall with Iran over its nuclear pretensions.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could only say Thursday that Washington would consult with its partners in talks about North Korean talks -- China, Japan, South Korea and Russia -- and "talk about where we go next,."
North Korea said Thursday it would no longer engage in the dialogue and said it had manufactured bombs to protect itself against a US attack.
The chief US diplomat also sought to play down Pyongyang`s announcement, and described it as more of a blow to the North Korean people than a threat to the West.
"We are confident," she said, that "the United States and its allies can deal with any potential threat from North Korea, and North Korea, I think, understands that."
She said Pyongyang`s nuclear posturing "is an unfortunate move, most especially probably for the people of North Korea because it only deepens the North Koreans` isolation from the rest of the international community."
The United States, while not taking any option off the table, says it is not considering any military strike against either North Korea or Iran at the current time.
But with neither country appearing susceptible to further sanctions, the United States and its allies are left with only carrots and no sticks to drive their message home to the two states.
In fact, Washington is withdrawing nearly one third of its 37,000 troops in South Korea.
The latest shock came after a weeklong tour of Europe and the Middle East that was dominated to a large degree by concerns over Iran.
Rice told reporters that the US message to both Pyongyang and Tehran -- which it has described as members of an "axis of evil" -- boils down to: "give up these aspirations for nuclear weapons and life could be different."
So opaque is the regime in Pyongyang that Rice could not even hazard a guess why it was behaving so stubbornly.
"I`m not sure that anyone gets very far in trying to second guess the motivations of the North Korean regime," she said.
02/10/2005 15:18 GMT - AFP