Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry warned Saturday that the United States might be forced to take military action against North Korea if China and South Korea do not agree to apply "coercive action" in urging North Korea to scrap its nuclear ambitions. At an emergency international symposium, titled "North Korean Nuclear Test and Security in East Asia," hosted by The Yomiuri Shimbun with moderator Hajime Izumi, a professor at the University of Shizuoka, Perry and three other panelists from Japan, China and South Korea expressed pessimistic views on the outcome of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programs, which are expected to resume later this year.
Perry said if China and South Korea "did not the provide the coercion" by threatening to cut off their supply of food and oil to North Korea in the event it completed a large nuclear reactor, the United States "might take the only meaningful coercive action available to it--destroying the reactor before it could come on line."