North Korea Threatens War If Sanctions Levied

SEOUL -- In one of its strongest threats so far, North Korea warned Monday that any punitive sanctions against it over its nuclear program would instantly provoke war.The warning came as the United States and its allies were preparing to seek a UN resolution to punish North Korea for refusing to allow full nuclear inspections as required by an international controls treaty."Sanctions mean outright war," said a statement issued by the Committee for Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland, North Korea's chief organization overseeing inter-Korea affairs."If the South Korean puppet hopes that it would be safe while opening the forum of sanctions, it is a big miscalculation," it said.Despite the North's warnings, there were no signs that Pyongyang's Communist government was massing troops along its border with South Korea, Seoul officials said."If the North chooses reckless adventurism, it will be destined to self-destruction," President Kim Young-sam was quoted as saying Monday."The North will not have a single nuclear bomb, not even half a bomb. I am determined to stop them," the South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted Kim as telling reporters traveling with him in the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan. North Korea invaded its southern rival in 1950, starting a three-year war that resulted in millions of casualties. The United States has about 36,000 troops and an array of sophisticated weaponry, including Patriot anti-missile batteries, stationed in South Korea under a mutual defense treaty.In Seoul, security-related South Korean cabinet officials reviewed the nuclear inspection crisis and assessed the readiness of South Korea's military. "We must keep a close vigil," Prime Minister Lee Yung-duk said after the two-hour session. Also Monday, a senior South Korean official said China is not expected to block a sanctions resolution if the UN Security Council decides to censure North Korea for refusing inspections.The official said the Security Council is expected to study possible sanctions against the North on Tuesday.Senior officials of the United States, South Korea and Japan met in Washington last week and decided to seek UN economic sanctions against North Korea."China is deeply worried about North Korea's unilateral replacing of spent fuel rods at its nuclear reactor," the official told South Korean reporters traveling with Kim."We, therefore, expect that China would not use its veto power in the course of a sanctions debate at the UN Security Council," he added. The official said any sanctions to be enforced should be "painful" to the North, but also gradual, offering a chance to reverse its hardline stand.The official, who handles national security affairs, said North Korea still has time to cooperate with UN inspectors as it has not diverted spent fuel rods recently removed from the reactor.President Kim told reporters that China will "feel much more pressure to participate this time" because other Security Council members honored its preference in March for a non-binding statement instead of a sanctions resolution against North Korea.Meanwhile, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said a military delegation led by Choe Kwang, chief of staff of North Korea's army, left for China on Monday. North Korea insists that its nuclear program is peaceful but its refusal to allow full international inspections for more than 15 months has deepened suspicion that it is developing weapons.The latest crisis developed last week when the UN International Atomic Energy Agency declared that the North's removal of fuel rods has made it impossible to verify whether any nuclear materials have been diverted.U.S. officials have said if the UN Security Council fails to adopt sanctions against the North, they, along with other willing allies, including South Korea and Japan, would enforce multilateral economic sanctions.