AUSTRALIAN Foreign Minister Bob Carr will make a personal appeal for China to persuade
North Korea to "ratchet down" its behaviour after the rogue nation threatened a nuclear strike against the United States.
The North Korean military released a statement on Thursday saying it had received final approval for military action against the US, possibly involving nuclear weapons."The moment of explosion is approaching fast," the Korean People's Army general staff said, responding to what it called the provocative US use of nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers in ongoing war games with South Korea.
The US aggression would be "smashed by ... cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means," the statement said.
The announcement came after the US moved to protect military bases on Guam, an island about 3380km southeast of North Korea and home to 6000 American military personnel, submarines and bombers.
Senator Carr, who will travel to China with Prime Minister Julia Gillard in the coming days, said the latest threats out of Pyongyang were "of great concern", adding that the restraint shown by South Korea could not continue "indefinitely".
"The focus of my concern is they will do something belligerent towards the south, or even launch another attack on the south, and the south has made it clear that they will respond," Senator Carr, who is in Indonesia for a series of high-level meetings, said on Thursday.
"We would urge North Korea to take a step back, to ratchet down its rhetoric and its actions, to submit to a cooling off period," he said.
"We will talk to the Chinese as the one country that has any influence over the behaviour, over the conduct of North Korea, when I and the prime minister are talking with the new Chinese leadership in the coming days."
Analysts have said that while the latest threat from Pyongyang was similar to one issued a month ago, it appeared to now have the added weight of "approval" from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
North Korea threatened a "pre-emptive" nuclear strike against the US in early March, and last week its supreme army command ordered strategic rocket units to combat status.
While Pyongyang has successfully carried out test nuclear detonations, most experts think it is not yet capable of mounting a device on a ballistic missile capable of striking US bases or territory.
But US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said North Korea's military capabilities represented a "real and clear danger" to the United States and to its allies South Korea and Japan, and that the threats from Pyongyang must be taken seriously.
