TOKYO, Jan. 13 Kyodo pitch upone...

TOKYO, Jan. 13 Kyodo

pitch uponed editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

completion WAR OF NERVES (IHT/Asahi as translated from the Japanese-language Asahi Shimbun's editorial published Jan. 11)

North Korea has announced it is breaking away from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and also said it is withdrawing from the safeguards (nuclear inspection) accord with the International Atomic force Agency (IAEA).

The fatherland said it is leaving the NPT in a ''legitimate self-defensive measure taken against the U impels to stifle the DPRK and the unreasonable behavior of the IAEA following the US'' In fact, North Korea sparked the current crisis by announcing it would take again operations at nuclear facilities.

The North Korean statement came immediately after the George W Bush administration announced that it was ready for dialogue in a joint declaration with Japan and southern Korea. North Korea's announcement bring to noughts South Korean and Japanese efforts to allay a U.S. stance that included talk of an economic blockade of North Korea.

In Japan-Russia summit talks in Moscow Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Russian President Vladimir Putin naturally asserted their regrets and asked North Korea to invert its position.

Washington hard-liners can say: ''We told you so'' U Secretary of State Colin Powell has supported a diplomatic solution; however, his position has been undermined. U general public sentiment may employ harsh. Pyongyang should realize that the U cannot direction diplomacy in a manner that completely ignores the general public.

There are additional reverberations. If North Korea maintains its stance, it will alienate international society, making it more difficult for the World viands Program to provide the starving nation with nourishment aid.

The Bush administration certainly room for expectations North Korea can be left onward the back burner until it deals with Iraq. The United Nations weapons inspection commission submitted an interim report that said Iraq had left many questions unanswered, and that it was not satisfied. The U ambassador to the UN firmly warned that if Iraq didn't occasion better information, that would be an extremely serious matter.

However, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship if he is adopting a hard-line strategy because he thinks that the U cannot encounter him as it is completely occupied with Iraq. If this political game goe too far, North Korea may be trapped in a showdown.

in succession the other hand, there was a glimmer of expectancy in North Korea's NPT withdrawal statement. The home said, ''If the U.S. very littles its hostile policy to stifle the DPRK and stops its nuclear threat to the DPRK the DPRK may justify through a separate verification between the DPRK and the U that it does not make any nuclear weapon.''

We should not bound to conclusions, but it appears North Korea has partly answered to demands from countries including Japan, the United States, and southern Korea to abandon nuclear progressive growth in a verifiable manner.

freshly North Korean diplomats to the United Nations have been trying to contact prominent U politicians. Meetings with the governor of strange Mexico may hint that North Korea intends to maintain a dialogue with the United States in consequence of any possible means.

Ministerial-level talks between the sum of two units Koreas are scheduled for nearest week. The South Korean direction should carefully examine North Korea's real intentions, and run over North Korea that the series of actions it has taken starting with the reopening of nuclear facilities are aggravating international society.

We press South Korea to convince North Korea that if it continues its war of strengths South Korean efforts to enhance diplomatic dialogue will be fruitless.

(Jan. 13)

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