U.S. Urges U.N. to Impose Mild N. Korean Curbs

The United States proposed to other U.N. Security Council members Wednesday that the world body impose mild sanctions against North Korea as the first step in a punitive campaign that the Communist government insists could lead to war.

Speaking with reporters outside the council chamber, Madeleine Albright, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the North Koreans would “pay a heavy price in diplomatic isolation” if they kept defying the International Atomic Energy Agency and refusing full inspection of their nuclear installations.

Wednesday’s draft resolution was far less punishing than measures first advocated by the Clinton Administration. Because of opposition from China and Japan, the resolution would not impose a trade embargo on North Korea. It would postpone a ban on the transfers of money from Koreans living in Japan to relatives and friends in North Korea.

Instead of a trade embargo, it would halt North Korea’s export and import of arms, end U.N. technical assistance, ban technical and scientific assistance, reduce the number of diplomats at North Korean embassies around the world and curtail cultural, scientific and educational exchange programs.

The resolution will probably not come to a vote for several weeks and may be altered substantially before then. It would take effect only 30 days after adoption by the council.

None of the sanctions appeared likely to exact a heavy price from the North Korean economy. The country’s arms trade, for example, is estimated at only $50 million a year. U.N. technical assistance is low--$3 million a year from the U.N. Development Fund for projects such as agricultural productivity and industrial pollution control, and $1 million a year from the U.N. Children’s Fund for projects including the iodination of salt and promotion of breast-feeding.

In drafting the resolution, the Administration sought to relieve pressure from opposite directions. It must persuade China, a longtime ally of North Korea, not to use its veto on the council to shoot down the sanctions. The Administration also is seeking to convince South Korea, Japan and other allies in the region that the resolution would not provoke war.

President Clinton said the draft reflects his Administration’s intention “to be very deliberate, very firm.”

“I feel that we are pursuing the proper course at this time,” he told reporters as he met with congressional leaders in the White House.

The Administration decision to seek sanctions in phases came in for criticism from some Republicans, who argued that more must be done to prepare for the possibility of war.

“To call for sanctions at this late stage is almost a joke . . . ,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a consistent critic of Clinton’s handling of the North Korea crisis. “Sanctions alone, without the threat of military force behind them, will not be effective.”

But House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia, one of the congressional leaders who met with Clinton, said: “I think he recognizes this is the most dangerous foreign policy problem he’s faced so far in his term, and I think on our side there’s a ‘Be cautious, be firm but don’t rush into anything right this minute’ kind of mood.”

The current crisis began when North Korea refused to let IAEA inspectors examine fuel rods removed from a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon to determine whether the North Koreans in 1989 had removed enough plutonium to make a nuclear bomb. When the IAEA condemned this action, North Korea withdrew from the agency. It remains a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even though the IAEA monitors compliance with that accord.

Albright described the sanctions as “carefully calibrated: . . . The more they break the rules, the tougher the sanctions.” North Korea presumably could head off the first phase of sanctions--the arms embargo, halt in U.N. aid and cut in diplomatic and cultural relations--if it cooperated with the IAEA in the grace period, which diplomats said would be 30 days.

“If there is further backsliding by North Korea,” Albright said, “we will tighten the economic noose by cutting off all financial transactions with Pyongyang.” She did not define what might provoke the further sanctions but there is a fear that North Korea may decide to withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty.

An American official said the draft described the second phase of sanctions, aimed at stopping remittances from Koreans living in Japan. These sanctions would not be activated without a second Security Council resolution. If the 15-member body decided later to tighten sanctions even more with a trade embargo, a third resolution would be necessary.

Meantime, former President Jimmy Carter arrived Wednesday in North Korea, hoping to help defuse the crisis. At a Pyongyang reception hosted by Foreign Minister Kim Yong Nam, Carter said the United States “is ready to meet you in accomplishing” the goals of friendship and peace, and that progress can be made “as soon as the nuclear issue is resolved clearly and the misunderstandings are removed,” news agencies reported.

Asked about Carter’s visit, Clinton told reporters he hopes the former President “will get a better sense from them about where they are and that they will understand that we’re very firm in our position but that there is an alternative path and a very good one for North Korea, that they don’t have to become more isolated.”

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Times staff writers Michael Ross, Jim Mann and Art Pine contributed to this report.