( L - R ) KIM JONG-IL, JINTAO, KOIZUMI, BUSH and PUTIN
WASHINGTON (Reuters):
UNITED STATES President George W. Bush discussed with China ways of putting 'greater pressure' on North Korea after the reclusive Stalinist state acknowledged for the first time yesterday it had launched several missiles.
In a flurry of diplomacy as the U.N. Security Council debated possible sanctions against North Korea, Bush talked by telephone to Chinese President Hu Jintao, the White House said. He also spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, a U.S. official said earlier.
Putin, speaking in a televised webcast, said concern about North Korean missiles launched on Wednesday should not trigger an emotional reaction "that would drown out common sense".
Bush spoke by telephone on Wednesday with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and stressed the need for a unified response at the United Nations to North Korea's missile launches.
A defiant North Korea vowed more tests and threatened to use force if the international community tried to stop it.
China, grappling with pressure from Washington over North Korea's missile tests, said its top negotiator on the North Korean nuclear crisis would visit Pyongyang next week.
MISSILE LAUNCH EXERCISE
China's Hu told Bush he opposed "anything that would threaten peace and stability" on the Korean peninsula, the White House said.
While China and Russia oppose sanctions on North Korea for the volley of missiles it fired, the United States and Japan have closed ranks in the face of a U.N. Security Council split on the issue.
"The KPA will go on with missile launch exercises as part of its efforts to bolster deterrent for self-defence in the future," North Korea's official KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will have no option but to take stronger physical actions of other forms, should any other country dare take issue with the exercises and put pressure upon it."
Officials say North Korea launched at least six missiles from its east coast early on Wednesday and, as the international community fumed, it fired off a seventh some 12 hours later.
