Clinton Turns Up Heat on N. Korea : Asia: He suggests that U.S. may set deadline for action if Pyongyang refuses to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities. He also pledges to keep troops on peninsula.

President Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young Sam on Saturday turned up the pressure on North Korea to allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities, with both leaders suggesting that it may soon be time to set a deadline for some new action against the Pyongyang regime.

Shortly after arriving here from the economic summit in Tokyo, Clinton made it plain in a speech to South Korea’s National Assembly that the United States will not permit the nuclear talks it opened with North Korea last month to drag on for a long time. Some South Korean critics said the talks could buy time for North Korea to develop nuclear weapons.

“Our goal is not endless discussions, but certifiable compliance,” the President asserted. “ . . . So long as North Korea abides by the U.N. Charter and international non-proliferation commitments, it has nothing to fear from America.

” . . . The Korean Peninsula remains a vital American interest,” Clinton went on. “Our troops will stay here as long as the Korean people want and need us here.”

For his part, Kim, after talks with Clinton, said the international community may soon have to come up with “appropriate countermeasures” to settle the nuclear dispute with North Korea. The South Korean president would not spell out what these measures should be.

Earlier, Clinton had issued a more dramatic threat of what would be done if North Korea was actually to use an atomic bomb.

“We would quickly and overwhelmingly retaliate if they were to ever use--to develop and use--nuclear weapons,” he declared in an interview broadcast on NBC. “It would mean the end of their country as they know it.”

The remarks by both men represent a distinctly tougher stance toward North Korea after several months in which both the Clinton Administration and South Korea had tried to see if negotiations and persuasion might bring about some change in North Korea’s policies.

For the past year, North Korea has been refusing to permit inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear facilities.

Many officials believe the North Korean regime fears the inspectors would turn up scientific evidence that it is developing nuclear weapons. CIA Director R. James Woolsey testified earlier this year that North Korea may already have produced enough plutonium at its Yongbyon nuclear plant to provide the ingredients for at least one nuclear bomb.

In March, North Korea stunned the world by threatening to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Such a withdrawal would have been unprecedented and might have encouraged other nations seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, such as Iran, to avoid inspections.

In June, after more than a week of direct, high-level talks between the United States and North Korea, the Pyongyang regime agreed to hold off on its threat to withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty, but it has not yet agreed to let the IAEA make inspections.

U.S. and North Korean officials are scheduled to begin a second round of negotiations Wednesday in Geneva.

So far, the Clinton Administration has not set any deadline for North Korea to permit nuclear inspections. But in the week leading up to Clinton’s visit here Saturday, U.S. officials went out of their way to show that their patience with the talks may be limited.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher told reporters in Tokyo on Friday that the United States is once again considering the possibility of imposing sanctions against North Korea.

North Korea obtains most of its oil and some rice and foodstuffs from abroad. U.S. government analysts have said that any international sanctions or embargo against North Korea would not succeed without the cooperation of China, which they see as unlikely.

In his speech here Saturday, Clinton repeatedly pressed the theme that the United States is not retreating from Asia and will not cut back on its troop deployments across the Pacific.

“Our mutual agreement with the Philippines to close our bases there should not be cause for Asian alarm,” the President said. “The larger picture tells a different story. . . . Here in Korea, we have frozen American troop withdrawals and are modernizing Korean and American forces on the peninsula. . . . These are signs that America intends to stay.”

He also sought to dispel impressions--spurred by the American reluctance to intervene in Bosnia-Herzegovina--that the United States is retreating to a more passive foreign policy because of its economic problems.

“To some in America, there is a fear that America’s global leadership is an outdated luxury we can no longer afford,” Clinton told the National Assembly. “Well, they are wrong. In truth, our global leadership has never been a more indispensable or a more worthwhile investment for us.

“So long as we remain bordered by oceans and powered by trade, so long as our flag is a symbol of democracy and hope to a fractious world, the imperative of America’s leadership will remain.”

South Korean commentators reacted favorably Saturday to Clinton’s speech.

“It was significant that Clinton emphasized the U.S.-Korean relations were made in blood and (that) we remain a U.S. ‘vital interest,’ ” said Yang Sung Chul, a Kyung Hee University political science professor. “Clinton’s expression means Korea remains as important after the Cold War as before.”

Some legislators, however, showed their opposition to importing American rice by displaying placards carrying slogans such as “We Oppose Imports of Rice” and “Rice Is the Spirit of Our People” during Clinton’s speech.

Clinton apparently noticed the placards but did not show any response, one opposition legislator said.