*이 글은 뉴욕 타임즈에서 퍼온 것이다.
U.S. and Japan Warn North Korea on Nuclear Standoff
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON


RAWFORD, Tex., May 23 ?President Bush and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi warned North Korea today that any steps it took toward building additional nuclear weapons would be met with a stronger response from the United States and Japan.

Speaking to reporters at the president's ranch here, the two leaders did not define the tougher measures, and they emphasized their belief that the crisis could be resolved through diplomacy.

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'We are confident that our diplomatic approach will bring a peaceful solution,' Mr. Bush said. 'Yet we agreed that further escalation of the situation by North Korea will require tougher measures from the international community.'

The meeting helped advance the White House strategy of a united front against North Korea, especially among the nations, including Japan and South Korea, seen by the administration as most willing to grant concessions to North Korea in the interest of averting a crisis.

Mr. Bush described Japan and the United States as standing 'shoulder to shoulder' in their determination not to be 'blackmailed by North Korean threats.' Mr. Koizumi used almost identical language.

Still, there was some concern among Japanese officials here that some of Mr. Bush's more hawkish advisers would ultimately press him to take a hard line with North Korea and risk a military confrontation that Japan views as having potentially catastrophic consequences for other nations in the region.

Mr. Koizumi alluded to the Japanese concerns even as he emphasized his belief that Mr. Bush would not push North Korea so hard as to risk war. The president, Mr. Koizumi said, 'was stating very clearly that our response to North Korea would be different from that to Iraq.'

Mr. Koizumi added that the American position was that 'all options will remain available,' but that Mr. Bush was 'confident that a peaceful resolution can be achieved.'

Mr. Bush's meeting with Mr. Koizumi had a similar tone to his meeting last week with South Korea's new president, Roh Moo Hyun, who also pressed the United States to rule out military action in response to a North Korean provocation. Like South Korea, Japan fears that war would expose it to conventional, biological and chemical or even nuclear attack from North Korea.

Japan has signaled a willingness in recent months to take a tougher line with the North Korean government of Kim Jong Il, largely in response to North Korea's admission that it kidnapped Japanese citizens decades ago. North Korea has so far refused to allow all of those who were abducted and their families to return to Japan.

Japan has already threatened to cut off the flow of money to North Korea from North Koreans living in Japan. Today Mr. Koizumi suggested that Japan was ready to do more to help battle North Korea's effort to counterfeit United States currency and cut off North Korea's trade in weapons technology.

'In any event,' the Japanese leader said, 'Japan will crack down more rigorously on illegal activities.''

White House officials said they had not yet determined what further measures the United States and its allies might take if North Korea takes another provocative step toward expanding its nuclear arsenal or selling nuclear material to other governments or terrorist organizations.

'There are various different ways in which they cannot be helpful, calling out for different sorts of responses,' a senior administration official said after the leaders completed their talks.

American officials said they had not decided whether or when to seek additional talks with North Korea. But they said if talks went ahead, they should be expanded to include not just China, North Korea and the United States ?the three countries that participated in an exploratory round of talks last month in Beijing ?but also Japan and South Korea, and later perhaps Russia.

The two countries agreed to step up the pace of their joint efforts to develop missile defense systems. Japan has been conducting research with the United States on systems that could protect it from North Korea's short- and long-range missiles. But it has not yet decided whether to produce and deploy missile defenses, as the United States is urging it to do.

'Basically this is a question where we are sure the Japanese are going to do the right thing,' the senior administration official said. 'But they have to work it out within their own system.'

Mr. Koizumi's visit to Mr. Bush's ranch lasted less than 24 hours, but the president gave him the treatment he reserves for his favorite allies. On Thursday afternoon, immediately after the Japanese leader's arrival here from Tokyo, Mr. Bush gave Mr. Koizumi a driving tour of the ranch, and then lounged by the pool with him for two hours before sitting down to dinner of smoked beef tenderloin.

Their discussions ranged over Iraq, global terrorism and the economy.

A senior administration official said Mr. Bush told Mr. Koizumi that the policy of the United States was to support a strong dollar, a position that has been increasingly in doubt in recent weeks as the administration has signaled its willingness to allow the dollar to weaken against major currencies, including the yen.

Mr. Bush encouraged Mr. Koizumi to continue dealing with his nation's banking crisis, even bringing up the Japanese government's handling of a specific bank.

'I shall tackle deflation,' Mr. Koizumi told reporters at the joint news conference, referring to Japan's most intractable economic problem, a broad-based decline in prices and wages. 'I shall never allow a financial crisis to occur.'