Bush, Abe warn N. Korea to fulfill pact

President Bush and Japan’s prime minister urged North Korea on Friday to abide by its commitment to dismantle its nuclear programs or, they warned, it could face new sanctions.

During a visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Bush rejected the suggestion that he had “gone soft” by granting North Korea additional time to comply with an agreement reached in February under which the communist regime was to freeze plutonium production at its reactor at Yongbyon.

“We recently had a bump in the road to getting them to honor their agreement,” Bush acknowledged during a brief question-and-answer session with reporters at his Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.

“We now have a structure in place to continue to provide a strong message to the North Koreans. We have the capability of more sanctions. We have the capability of convincing other nations to send a clear message.”

Bush did not specify what he meant by the threat of more sanctions.

Progress on the agreement has stalled because of a dispute over $25 million in North Korean funds held by a bank in the Chinese territory of Macao. U.S. officials say a hold on the funds has been lifted, but North Korean officials say they are still unable to touch the money or transfer it elsewhere.

In response, North Korea has delayed giving access to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, so it can inspect Yongbyon and verify that the reactor has been halted.

“Our patience is not unlimited.... There is still time for the North Korean leader to make the right choice,” Bush said.

Abe is on a two-day visit to Washington, his first since he became prime minister in September. Most of the visit has consisted of private meetings between Abe and Bush, ostensibly to give the two time to develop a personal relationship.

But the schedule also allowed Abe to avoid public forums, where he would be likely to face awkward questions about the Japanese role in sexually enslaving 200,000 so-called comfort women during World War II. Abe has expressed sorrow for their plight, but has refused to acknowledge that it was the Japanese military that coerced the women into brothels.

“I, as prime minister of Japan, express my apologies and also express my apologies for the fact that they were placed in that sort of circumstance,” Abe repeated Friday in response to a reporter’s question, using the same language he has used before to avoid the question of who was responsible for their situation.

Bush and Abe, in the relaxed style of Camp David, wore coats without ties and adjourned after the news conference for a lunch featuring cheeseburgers. Bush is hoping the Japanese will end their ban on imports of U.S. beef, imposed after the crisis surrounding mad cow disease three years ago.

“The Japanese people are better off when they eat American beef,” Bush said.

maura.reynolds@latimes.com

Times staff writers Johanna Neuman and Bob Drogin contributed to this report.