U.S. slams North Korea over ship sinking

Obama administration officials Thursday condemned North Korea for a torpedo attack they believe sank a South Korean naval patrol ship in March, and began a diplomatic effort through the United Nations to crack down on Pyongyang.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to signal strong U.S. support for a new round of U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea when she visits Seoul on Monday, officials said.

She also will urge support of the proposed sanctions while in China, which has more leverage over North Korea than any other country, officials said.

Officials said they were weighing new country-to-country punishments, possibly including restoring North Korea to the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism. North Korea was removed from the list in 2008 after Pyongyang agreed to dismantle some of its nuclear facilities.

“We will be looking at a range of tools that will be available to us … to make clear to North Korea that these kinds of provocative actions will not be tolerated,” said Philip J. Crowley, the chief State Department spokesman.

The unusually aggressive tone toward North Korea by the U.S. and other countries followed South Korea’s accusation Thursday that North Korea fired the torpedo that sank the ship, killing 46 crewmen and significantly raising the security stakes on an already tense Korean peninsula.

Citing what it called overwhelming evidence, a joint civilian-military multinational team determined that fragments and markings from a torpedo found amid the wreckage of the vessel matched that of a North Korean-made weapon already in the South’s possession.

The team’s report concluded that “there is no other plausible explanation” than the North’s involvement.

North Korea called the probe’s findings a “fabrication” and warned that retaliation would lead to “all-out war.”

The government said it would send its own inspection team to the South to consider the evidence, according to a statement released through the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency. It wasn’t clear whether the South would allow such a trip.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has vowed to take “stern action,” including severing most or all economic aid to the North. Lee called an emergency security meeting for Friday, pledging to augment naval forces and sensors along the disputed maritime boundary between North and South where the sinking occurred.

South Korea said it would also ask the U.N. Security Council to issue a strong rebuke and impose financial penalties against Pyongyang.

Although North Korea has been hit by a variety of sanctions, the South Koreans and United Nations still can take steps that will hurt, said Victor D. Cha, who served as White House advisor on North Korea to former President George W. Bush.

The United Nations can tighten financial sanctions on North Korean front companies and other organizations that will “make it harder for them to do business” abroad. Pyongyang was furious when the United States and allies froze North Korean money in foreign banks, and might react strongly to similar steps.

The North Koreans “won’t like it,” said Cha, who is now with Georgetown University. “The problem is, you can’t not respond to what they’ve done, because it’s such a serious provocation.”

He emphasized the importance of Clinton’s appeal to the Chinese, who are by far the biggest economic partner of the North. “She’s really got to press the Chinese hard on this issue,” he said.

At the same time, the Obama administration is also urging China to collaborate on proposed U.N. sanctions against Iran, which is an even higher priority for the United States. The U.S. may not want to press the Chinese on North Korea if it makes them less inclined to go along on Iran, analysts said.

Analysts said the growing diplomatic pressure poses a predicament for China. Yet the wide diplomatic support for South Korea has made it difficult for China not to join the collective action.

Cui Tiankai, China’s vice minister of foreign affairs, on Thursday called the Cheonan sinking “unfortunate,” but stopped short of backing Seoul in the dispute. He instead reiterated the need to maintain peace on the Korean peninsula.

Some U.S. analysts predicted that China would resist taking the issue to the United Nations, and that Beijing would attempt to water down any proposed action.

U.S. officials were careful to portray the anticipated moves as a collective action, with the South Koreans in the lead, rather than an American-designed plan.

“The key thing to remember here is that this was an attack on a South Korean ship. And the South Koreans need to be in the lead in terms of proposing ways forward,” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said at a Pentagon news conference.

U.S. officials concur with the findings of the investigation of the incident by the South Korean government, he said.

The U.S. has sufficient forces to intervene in the Korea peninsula, if necessary, Gates said, noting that any military response would rely heavily on air and naval forces, because American ground troops are heavily engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But U.S. officials continued to play down the prospect of a military confrontation.

Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces had not changed their state of alert, despite the heightened tensions.

john.glionna@latimes.com

paul.richter@latimes.com

Glionna reported from Seoul and Richter from Washington. Times staff writer David S. Cloud in Washington and Ju-min Park of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.