Clinton hopes North Korea moves will not threaten Asia

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday she was traveling to Asia to reassure allies of the U.S. commitment to them and was hopeful North Korean saber rattling would not destabilize the region.

North Korea has said recently that it was terminating all agreements with South Korea and that the peninsula was on the brink of war, statements that are not unusual from Pyongyang but that Clinton said were unacceptable to its neighbors.

Speaking ahead of her February 15-22 trip to Tokyo, Jakarta, Seoul and Beijing, her first trip abroad as secretary of state, Clinton said the United States was committed to the six-party talks under which North Korea in 2005 agreed to abandon all its nuclear programs.

The talks include the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

However, Pyongyang tested a nuclear device in 2006, has been slow to carry out agreements on disabling its plutonium program and has refused to commit to a verification regime, leaving the multilateral process stalled.

Asked what the United States could do to prevent the harsh rhetoric from leading to conflict between the two Koreas, Clinton told reporters: "I am going to Asia to reassert our commitment to our allies and partners.

"We are hopeful that some of the behavior that we have seen coming from North Korea in the last few weeks is not a precursor of any action that would up the ante or threaten the stability and peace and security of the neighbors in the region," she said during a press conference with the Czech foreign minister.

"North Korea has to understand that all of the countries in East Asia have made it clear that its behavior is viewed as unacceptable and there are opportunities for the government and people of North Korea were they to begin once again to engage in the six-party talks and other bilateral and multilateral forums," she added. "We are hopeful that we will see that in the weeks and months ahead.

"I know of the continuing concern on the part of the other members of the six-party talks with respect to North Korea's attitude in the last weeks," she said. "I will be talking to our counterparts to determine the most effective way forward."

Wendy Sherman, a former State Department official who worked on North Korea under former President Bill Clinton, said Clinton was going in part to gauge how U.S. allies like Japan and South Korea wanted to deal with North Korea.

"(It is) obviously crucial, given that we are allies of Japan and South Korea, to get their sense of where things are, how far they are willing to go" to press North Korea to get back on the disarmament track, Sherman said.

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Paul Eckert; Editing by Xavier Briand)