US pushes for aid in North Korean dispute

"Unless you have a process prewired, a consensus on what the Security Council would do ... then it's possible that the referral in and of itself would be ineffective," said Scott Snyder, Asia Foundation representative in South Korea. "There is not a consensus in favor of sanctions."\nThe move to the Security Council is part of a U.S. push to involve other countries in the dispute, which North Korea has cast as exclusively between Pyongyang and Washington. Washington, however, has not said specifically that it would seek sanctions.\nSecretary of State Colin Powell has urged China, North Korea's main ally, to take a larger role in convincing Pyongyang to give up its nuclear plans. On Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Thomas Hubbard, reiterated the U.S. preference for a multilateral approach.\n"The Board of Governors of the IAEA ... will meet soon, and we expect it to relay its concerns about North Korea to the United Nations Security Council," Hubbard said at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul. "The world community must continue to insist, clearly and firmly, that North Korea must not disregard its international obligations."\nSeoul has already done what it could to delay IAEA referral to the Security Council. The Vienna-based nuclear agency considered meeting on Feb. 3, but moved the meeting to today after South Korea pleaded for more time for talks with the North.\nSouth Korea relented after the North refused to commit to specific steps to defuse the standoff during talks in Seoul in January, and Southern envoys failed to win a widely expected meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in subsequent talks in Pyongyang.\nA top South Korean Foreign Ministry official, Chun Young-woo, conceded Monday that it was "almost certain" the North Korean dispute would be referred to the Security Council.\nThe South has not come out specifically against U.N. sanctions, but Seoul's approach has been constant: engagement and negotiation is the way to clinch an agreement with the North.\nSouth Korea has also attempted to calm fears of the danger represented by North Korea's nuclear development. On Monday, Prime Minister Kim Suk-soo said there was no proof Pyongyang already has a nuclear bomb as U.S. officials have asserted.\nWhile South Korea is not a member of the Security Council, two veto-holding members have expressed strong skepticism about shifting the Korean dispute to an international forum.