The U.N. Security Council on Monday night issued an 11th-hour appeal to North Korea to cooperate with international inspectors, prevented from determining if nuclear materials were diverted for weapons.
In response, Kim Su Man, North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador, said his country rejected the statement, which he called another attempt by the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency "to stifle my country."
All 15 members of the council, including China, North Korea's ally, approved a statement "strongly" urging North Korea not to change fuel rods at its nuclear reactor without enabling the IAEA to conduct proper tests.
The statement makes a veiled reference to economic sanctions by saying that "further Security Council consideration will take place" to achieve full compliance.
But the mildly worded document does not specifically threaten any trade measures.
Pyongyang on Friday refused to shut down the refueling of its reactor or to label and identify spent fuel rods the IAEA, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, needs to analyze the history of the reactor's core.
The United States suspects North Korea reprocessed the fuel rods into bomb-grade plutonium during the last reloading of the reactor in 1989 when IAEA inspectors were barred.
Meanwhile, South Korean President Kim Young Sam says he is drawing up contingency plans for possible war.
"International efforts to resolve the dispute through dialogue are at crucial crossroads," Kim says.
"They're at another brink," says William Taylor of the private Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
North Korea "may back off and they may not," says Taylor, who recently meet with reclusive dictator Kim Il Sung. "With every degree of increasing severity of sanctions, the probability that the North will attack the South will go up."
Taylor notes there is "a whole host of senators and congressmen pushing the administration" to defend South Korea. Patriot missile batteries and crewmen were shipped there this spring before an earlier U.N. inspection crisis was resolved. The United States has 35,000 troops in South Korea.
The renewed tensions come after a U.S. overture to give North Korea a sought-after third round of high-level diplomatic talks on such issues as economic aid. Taylor says U.S. aid already has been offered in the New York talks.
But North Korea responded by barring U.N. inspectors from a reprocessing plant at Yongbong.
IAEA officials are worried that within days they will lose their already fragile grip on monitoring the nuclear program. Two inspectors remain in the country.
"Time is running away if they continue with the refueling," says IAEA spokesman Hans Meyer. The North Koreans "decided not to allow us to measure" if fuel has been diverted to nuclear weapons.
The next critical deadline: June 6, when IAEA's board of governors meets in Vienna.
Board members could trigger the sanctions by saying they can't guarantee the continuity of North Korean nuclear inspection safeguards.
