The Pentagon has produced detailed plans to bomb North Korea's nuclear plant at Yongbyon if the Stalinist state goes ahead with reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods, an Australian report said.Citing "well-informed sources close to US thinking", The Australian newspaper said the plan also included a US strike against North Korean heavy artillery in the hills above the border with South Korea . The artillery directly threatens Seoul as well as US troops stationed south of the Demilitarised Zone.

The Pentagon hardliners said to be behind the plan reportedly believe the precision strikes envisaged in it would not lead to North Korea initiating a general war it would be certain to lose.

This is because Washington would inform Pyongyang that the bombing was not aimed at destroying the regime of Kim Jong-il, but merely at destroying its nuclear weapons capacity.

The Australian report coincides with reports from Washington of an alternative US plan which envisages the United States teaming up with China to press for the removal of North Korea's leadership.

The second plan, contained in a classified memo reportedly circulated by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, argues that Washington's goal should be the collapse of Kim Jong-il's regime.

President George W. Bush's US Adminstration has repeatedly said it believed the standoff would be resolved through diplomacy.

The reports come as confusion prevails over the ambiguous statements issued by Pyongyang last week about whether it has begun reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods or merely completed preparations to do so.

Western analysts, including those in Washington and in South Korea believe North Korea's initial announcement was a mistranslation and doubt there had been any such reprocessing.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Tuesday that Canberra also believed Pyongyang's statement claiming it had begun reprocessing the fuel rods had been mistranslated.

Reprocessing the 8,000 fuel rods, which would yield enough plutonium for six nuclear warheads within six months, would be the most provocative step taken by North Korea since the nuclear crisis erupted six months ago.

Downer told ABC radio on Tuesday that the Pentagon undoubtedly had "contingency plans for all sorts of things they could do in North Korea, militarily.

"That's the military's job, to draw up contingency plans, but the American administration strategy, as the President explained to me three weeks ago, is to ensure that there is a successful diplomatic solution here," he added.

"We are just on the threshhold of entering into the first round of talks. I don't know how they will go, but in any case we are starting to make a little bit of progess on the diplomatic front and there isn't about to be a bombing campaign."

North Korea, the United States and China are set to sit down in Beijing this week for the first direct high-level talks since the nuclear standoff erupted in October. The talks will open Wednesday and are scheduled to run until Friday.

PHOTO CAPTION

A satellite image of the Yongybon nuclear site in North Korea (AFP/File)