By Jonathan Thatcher
Seoul - Reclusive North Korea insisted on Friday that its missile launches were not an attack on anyone, as a senior United States envoy arrived in Asia to push Washington's case that a dangerous Pyongyang must be brought to heel.
The United States has stumbled in attempts to impose United Nations Security Council sanctions on North Korea for its July 4 missile tests because of opposition from Russia and China.
"This (the missile launches) is not an attack on someone," North Korea's councillor at the UN mission in Geneva, Choe Myong-nam, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
'A few hard weeks' Defying near-universal condemnation of the firings, North Korea has vowed to carry out more launches and has threatened to use force if the international community tries to stop it.
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"From an international point of view, it is not fair to say who can do one thing and who can't," Choe said. "The same applies to possessing nuclear weapons."
Washington sent its envoy on North Korea, Christopher Hill, to Asia to seek a unified stand. His first stop was Beijing, the nearest the communist state has to an international ally.
"It is in our interests that we send a clear message to the leaders of North Korea," US President George Bush told a news conference on Thursday.
But Bush rejected what many believe North Korea's leader internationally isolated leader Kim Jong-il really wants - direct talks between US and North Korean officials.
"I think the best way to solve this problem diplomatically is for there to be other nations around the table with us, so that when he looks out and he looks at the table, he looks at the world."
Chinese President Hu Jintao has told Bush that he opposes "anything that would threaten peace and stability" on the Korean peninsula, the White House said.
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