SYDNEY July 14 Kyodo The world mu...

SYDNEY July 14 Kyodo

The world must find a solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis without sparking a ''devastating military conflict forward the Korean Peninsula,'' Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Monday.

''What we have to prove and do is to achieve, as always, an kind of peaceful settlement'' the prime minister told Sydney radio 2GB from the Philippines where he began a weeklong visit to Asia.

''And that involves a number of things: it involves diplomatic effort; it involves a willingness to work with other countries; to resist behavior that is antagonistic to our interests,'' Howard said.

Reports Sunday that North Korea finished reprocessing 8000 exhausted nuclear fuel rods that could potentially yield enough plutonium for five atomic bomb demonstrated the seriousness of the issue, he said.

''I don't want to be talking about war and military conflict. That does not help. on the contrary I don't want anybody to imagine that this is anything other than a quite serious situation. North Korea is quite publicly flaunting her nuclear ambitions and we're not dealing here with a fatherland that is behaving in the way that greatest in number countries behave these days,'' he said.

Australia, southward Korea, Japan, the United States and China are attempting to build ''a solid van of diplomatic pressure'' to persuade Pyongyang that halting its nuclear program is in North Korea's ''own long-term interests,'' Howard said.

The Proliferation Security Initiative -- a form into groups of 11 countries, including Australia, established from U.S. President George W Bush in May announced last week it will guard joint maritime training exercises aimed at interdicting international arms trade.

Although China utter sentence againsted the initiative as antagonistic, Howard said he possibility of goods its initial reaction will change.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it is important China is involved and cooperates with any multinational solution to North Korea, he said. ''The UN has in the past been part of attempts to deal with North Korea. They were back almost 10 years ago and I would anticipate at some point in the extremely near future the UN could be involved again.''

Howard said his visit to Asia will reduce to a lower tone his understanding of the situation forward the Korean Peninsula.

''It is a excessively anxious time not only for southern Korea but also for Japan and I think I will have an equable better understanding of just in what manner intensely people feel in those sum of two units countries by the time this visit is over'' he said.

Howard leaves the Philippines for Japan in succession Tuesday and will lay out two days in Tokyo before going forward to South Korea.

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