Blair Sees Diplomatic Route for N. Korea

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunday that he does not envision an Iraq-style campaign against North Korea and insisted that diplomacy can succeed in getting Pyongyang to give up its weapons.

During a visit with South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, the two leaders tried to dampen widespread speculation that a war is brewing in Korea. Blair, who is the United States’ most important ally in the Iraq war, said that the North Korean leadership did not have the same record of violating U.N. resolutions as did Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

“There isn’t the same history, but there is the same sense of urgency about resolving it,” Blair said. “I’m not here with any desire to be aggressive or to threaten at all. [The North Korean issue] has to be dealt with, but it has to be dealt with in a peaceful manner.”

The remarks were well received by the South Koreans, who have tried to play down the seriousness of North Korea’s weapons program.

“Calling this situation a crisis is not correct,” Roh said. “When you compare the situation now to six months ago, I think some of the danger [of war] has subsided.... Inside and outside Korea, everybody is emphasizing a peaceful solution.”

Both leaders endorsed the Bush administration’s insistence that North Korea enter multilateral negotiations over its weapons programs. Blair said that the talks would probably start with the U.S., North Korea and China and later be expanded to include South Korea and Japan. He also said Britain, which recently established diplomatic relations with the North, would help the communist state revitalize its economy if it gives up its nuclear pursuits.

Blair later flew to Beijing, arriving early today for meetings with Chinese leaders.

The words of calm come amid new reports suggesting that the North is moving aggressively toward a military buildup.

The South Korean Defense Ministry on Saturday released a report saying that North Korea had deployed additional medium-range Rodong missiles on its east coast within easy striking distance of Japan and U.S. bases in the Pacific.

On Sunday, the New York Times reported that new U.S. evidence suggests that North Korea may be operating a secret nuclear facility, possibly underground, to reprocess fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium. If true, the existence of a second factory would explain why U.S. intelligence had not been able to detect evidence of reprocessing at North Korea’s main nuclear complex at Yongbyon.

A North Korean diplomat informed U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly in April that his country had almost completed reprocessing 8,000 fuel rods from the reactor. But U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies have been hard-pressed to confirm the claim and some have suspected a bluff.

South Korean officials Sunday dismissed the report.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to comment on the substance of the report. But he noted the North Koreans have acknowledged in the past developing a nuclear arms program.

Times staff writer Edwin Chen in Crawford, Texas, contributed to this report.