The Bush administration, chafing under North Korea (news - web sites)'s retreat from multilateral talks on nuclear disarmament, sought Thursday to push Pyongyang back to the bargaining table and warned that it faces increasing international isolation.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) had to confront the issue head-on as the North Koreans announced their renunciation of six-party talks as she was wrapping up her first international trip as the top U.S. diplomat. At a meeting of European Union (news - web sites) leaders in Luxembourg, she said the world community had given North Korea "a way out" and said its leaders should take it.
President Bush (news - web sites)'s press secretary, Scott McClellan, talked similarly back in the United States, telling reporters traveling with Bush that the United States still wants six-party talks.
"We remain committed to a peaceful diplomatic resolution to the nuclear issue with regards to North Korea," McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to a presidential appearance in Fargo, N.D. "It's time to talk about how to move forward."
Both Rice and McClellan played down any significance of North Korea's dramatic public announcement Thursday that it has nuclear weapons. "We've heard this kind of rhetoric from North Korea before," McClellan said.
U.S. officials believe North Korea may have anywhere from four to two dozen nuclear devices, depending on the assumptions used about the bombs' designs.
The United States, South Korea (news - web sites), China, Japan and Russia have struggled to arrange a fourth round of talks aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs. The last round was held last June.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the Bush administration has failed to sufficiently pressure China to use its leverage with the North Koreans and said the administration also should consider direct, two-party talks with North Korea.
"This administration has not paid enough attention to the situation in North Korea," Pelosi said. "The North Koreans know that we are otherwise occupied in military actions in other parts of the world and they have taken the liberty to be brazen."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he did not know whether North Korea had the weapons it claimed, but "one has to be concerned about it from a proliferation standpoint."
"One has to worry about weapons of that power in leadership of that nature," he added. "I don't think anyone would characterize the leadership in that country as being restrained."
A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, noted that the North Korean government had been laying the groundwork for the announcement for some time, with less public statements aimed at revealing a nuclear deterrent.
For example, the regime privately told Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in 2002 that it had a secret uranium-enrichment program that violated its 1994 agreement.
North Korea's announcement Thursday came one week after anonymous Bush administration officials said there was strong evidence that North Korea sold processed uranium to Libya.