Cheonan may signal new era of N. Korea hostility: DNI nominee

North Korea's torpedoing of a South Korean warship may signal the beginning of a new era in which the reclusive communist state will again directly attack South Korea to achieve its political goals, the nominee for the chief U.S. intelligence post said Tuesday.

"The most important lesson for all of us in the intelligence community from this year's provocations by Pyongyang is to realize that we may be entering a dangerous new period when North Korea will once again attempt to advance its internal and external political goals through direct attacks on our allies in the Republic of Korea," Yonhap News quoted James Clapper, nominated as director of National Intelligence, as telling the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The U.N. Security Council earlier this month issued a presidential statement condemning the attack on the Cheonan in the Yellow Sea in March, which killed 46 sailors, without directly blaming North Korea.

China, North Korea's major ally and a veto-wielding council member, greatly diluted the statement to focus more on the revival of the six-party nuclear talks. North Korea declared the statement "our great diplomatic victory."

"Coupled with this is a renewed realization that North Korea's military forces still pose a threat that cannot be taken lightly," said Clapper, a retired Air Force lieutenant general. "The Cheonan attack reemphasizes the importance of the DNI's responsibility to coordinate the IC (intelligence community)'s analytic and collection efforts against the North Korean threat."

Clapper, currently undersecretary of defense for intelligence, was nominated last month to replace Dennis Blair amid a turf war among intelligence agencies.

North Korea's detonation of a second nuclear device and a series of long-range ballistic missiles last year led to U.N. sanctions, prompting the North to boycott the nuclear talks.

Pyongyang denied involvement in the Cheonan incident, and called for a resumption of the six-party talks for its denuclearization and the signing of a peace pact to replace the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. It is not clear at the moment whether Pyongyang has dropped its precondition that sanctions be lifted.

Both Seoul and Washington, however, called on Pyongyang to forswear further provocations and demonstrate its denuclearization pledge before returning to the nuclear talks, involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

Philip Crowley, State Department spokesman, urged North Korea to "take steps to reduce tensions, improve relations with its neighbors, cease these provocative actions, and work more constructively toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

Speaking to reporters, Crowley did not rule out imposing further unilateral sanctions on North Korea.

"We are always looking at ways to put additional pressure on North Korea, to send clear signals about what North Korea must do," he said. "I would not forecast any specific action -- any specific announcements on a new round of sanctions. We always have this as a tool in the toolbox, but I'm not forecasting what our next steps will be."

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said Sunday that it is not the right time to discuss the resumption of the six-party talks, denouncing North Korea for trying to use the nuclear talks to divert international attention from the Cheonan.

Discussions to reopen the talks will take time, analysts say, as Seoul and Washington are preparing for military exercises in the Yellow Sea and the East Sea throughout August to demonstrate their joint deterrence against North Korea's provocations.

"It is unlikely that a show of strength by the U.S. military will cause the North Koreans to back down, much less apologize for the incident, something North Korea has never done in the past," said Charles Armstrong, director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University. "On the other hand, such moves contribute to the escalation of tensions in the region and have been criticized as provocative by China, which has urged restraint on all sides. At the present time, North Korea is preoccupied with internal issues and is not inclined to be responsive to external pressure or intimidation."

Some analysts believe the ailing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's youngest son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-un, 27, is behind the attack on the Cheonan.