Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Friday that he talked with U.S. President George W. Bush overnight about an upcoming UN Security Council resolution on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) following its first nuclear test on Monday.

"We talked about the progress with the Security Council resolution," Howard told Australia's Southern Cross Broadcasting radio.

"The president is cautiously optimistic that a strong resolution with the support of the major powers in the Security Council will be passed," he said.

"And there will therefore be some consequences flowing from that, it's not completely tied up but he is quite optimistic," Howard said.

Howard said Australia would not act without an internationally sanctioned understanding and until diplomatic means had been exhausted.

"It's a real dilemma because nobody wants military conflict but you are dealing with a country that doesn't seem to respond to the sort of pressure and the sort of situations that other countries respond to -- it's not rational," he said.

"If there were for example some kind of trade embargo sanctioned by the Security Council under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, then it would be responsible for Australia to participate along with a lot of other countries in enforcing those sanctions," he said.

Source: Xinhua