Rice to visit Japan, South Korea, China this month

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Japan, South Korea and China on Oct. 17-22, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian affairs Christopher Hill said on Friday.

The key part of Rice's trip will focus on making sure the UN Security Council resolution to be passed on imposing sanctions on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) "will really have teeth," Hill said.

The DPRK claimed Sunday night that it had successfully set off its first nuclear test. The Bush administration has since sought immediate action from the UN Security Council.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday that the sanctions to be imposed on the DPRK will focus primarily on not allowing the DPRK government "in any way to further develop its WMD or missile technology programs or in any way to benefit from those programs in the sense that it would export know-how, technology or material."

Source: Xinhua