US says it will not accept NKorea as nuclear state

The U.S. urged North Korea on Wednesday to stop its nuclear saber-rattling and negotiate with the world's great powers, vowing that Washington would never accept Pyongyang as an atomic weapons state.

Russia, China and other leading world nations lined up behind the United States in a rare demonstration of unity reflecting international concern over the North's rogue nuclear program and its steadily bellicose rhetoric.

As senior delegates of the U.S. and other countries discussed the situation with the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Pyongyang upped the ante, warning of a "thousand-fold" military retaliation against Washington and its allies if provoked.

Pyongyang claims its nuclear bombs are a deterrence against the United States and accuses Washington of plotting with South Korea to topple its secretive regime.

"If the U.S. and its followers infringe upon our republic's sovereignty even a bit, our military and people will launch a 100-or 1,000-fold retaliation with merciless military strike," the North's state-run Minju Joson newspaper said in a commentary.

Attention has been focused on North Korea since it conducted a second nuclear test on May 25 in defiance of the United Nations. The U.N. Security Council responded by toughening an arms embargo, authorizing ship searches for nuclear and ballistic missile cargo and depriving the regime of the financing used to build its nuclear program.

North Korea, which conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs. It disclosed last week that it also is producing enriched uranium, the other pathway to the production of fissile material for nuclear warheads.

The recent moves by North Korea have effectively brought to a halt the so-called six-party talks aimed at giving North Korea fuel and other benefits in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program. The talks involved the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia.

In Washington, President Barack Obama said the U.S. is more than willing to negotiate with North Korea to bring peace on the Korean peninsula. "But belligerent, provocative behavior that threatens neighbors will be met with significant and serious enforcement of sanctions that are in place," he said.

Sounding the same theme at the Vienna meeting, chief U.S. delegate Geoffrey Pyatt excoriated the North for abandoning the six party negotiations.

"We will not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state," Pyatt declared, in comments distributed to reporters. "We believe it is in North Korea's own best interests to return to serious negotiations."

Diplomats inside the closed meeting said three of the North's interlocutors _ China, Japan, Russia _ also criticized Pyongyang's nuclear defiance and urged it to return to talks, along with the European Union and Canada.

Except for a brief period that ended earlier this year when the North broke off negotiations and restarted work on its nuclear program, the IAEA has been shut out of North Korea since late 2002, when Pyongyang kicked out nuclear inspectors and subsequently said it was no longer bound by the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty.