RELATED STORY:Gates emphasizes Asian cooperation amid North Korea situation

SINGAPORE – Early Saturday morning, Defense Secretary Robert Gates began to put into action his plan to turn North Korea’s weeklong provocations into a chance for key Asian nations to unite together and with the U.S. against a common threat.

So, before delivering a lengthy speech that would outline the U.S. vision for Asian-Pacific security and warn North Korea that the U.S. “will not sit idly by” in the wake of Pyongyang’s belligerence, Gates rearranged his schedule so that his first meeting of the morning was with the highest-ranking Chinese official at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual meeting of the region’s defense ministers.

Later, Gates met with his defense counterparts from Japan and South Korea in a first-ever trilateral gathering.

In that meeting, Gates said that the six-party talks remain the first choice of the five nations dealing with North Korea – the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Russia and China – according to two senior defense officials who were in the room and briefed reporters.

But should those talks remain unproductive, Gates said, the parties need to start thinking of other options, the officials said.

“I think the secretary’s message is the first track here is the six-party talks,” said one official.

“Simultaneously, we ought to be working other tracks, including trilaterally, bilaterally – whatever is necessary to make sure we are taking precautions and taking prudent measures to enhance our defenses should the six-party talks not bear fruit and North Korea were to continue down this path.”

The secretary did not raise what specific enhancements he may have had in mind in the brief meeting, he said.

“Frankly, not one thing was mentioned. All the secretary did was raise the notion that we ought to think about this as we are pursuing the six-party talks.”

Earlier Gates delivered a 30-minute speech and took questions from an audience of mostly high-ranking foreign defense officials.

Most used the opportunity to ask him about issues related to their own home countries. Several asked about Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; a few questions targeted North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests.

Gates answered bluntly, saying that North Korea’s nuclear program was not a military threat to the United States, though their ongoing pursuit of nuclear weapons was a "harbinger of a dark future."

“The truth of the matter is, if they continue on the path they’re on, I think the consequences for stability in the region are significant. And I think it poses the potential – the potential – for some kind of an arms race here in this region. And I think everyone in this room knows that is a bad thing that would have very negative consequences of its own.”

The secretary said that other governments should not fall for Pyongyang’s tactics of causing a crisis and then asking for more money from the U.S. and other countries to buy them back to the negotiating table.

"I’m tired of buying the same horse twice," he said.

Responding to one questioner, the secretary drew comparisons with Iran.

“I think in many respects the challenge posed by Iran parallels that of North Korea.” Both regimes are seeking nuclear weapons and thwarting international condemnation, he explained.

“And the reality is, in both cases, for there to be a diplomatic – a peaceful solution to these challenges requires significant international, multilateral cooperation; and a willingness to impose genuinely tough sanctions that bring home to both countries real pain for their failure to adhere to international norms,” he said.

“These are problems that should and must be dealt with in peaceful ways. The consequences of conflict in either place, in both regions, are enormous to contemplate.”

Hedging his bets, Gates made a point to meet privately with China’s Lt. Gen. Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of the general staff of the Chinese army, for his first morning meeting.

“We talked about the importance of focusing on areas in which we can cooperate and work together, and having an open dialogue about those areas where we may have differences,” Gates told the audience after his speech, adding that he supports “the opening of a defense-based strategic dialogue between the United States and the People’s Republic [of China].”

“I think that a consistent conversation or dialogue that explores our respective strategic thinking, military programs, and where we’re headed and provides greater transparency that can only advance the interests of both countries and stability in the region and, frankly, globally. And I am optimistic that we have had a start on that kind of dialogue.”

But Gates told Ma that military-to-military dialogue lagged behind the diplomatic dialogue that already exists between the two countries.

China has never sent a minister-level counterpart to this conference. In 2007, Gates met Ma in China, according to Pentagon officials here, and on Saturday Ma seemed receptive to Gates’ messages, especially on forging a coordinated response to North Korea.

“There doesn’t seem to be any disconnect about the importance of the situation right now,” said a senior military official who was in the room. "This is clearly something they take seriously."

Neither senior defense official briefing Pentagon reporters who are traveling with the Gates would characterize Ma’s reaction to the secretary’s comments on North Korea, only to say of China, "Their concern seems to be genuine."

Pentagon officials here also announced that a high-level U.S. delegation leaving Sunday morning would visit each capital the other four members of the six-party talks with North Korea, stopping in Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Moscow.

The Pentagon had wanted to send Undersecretary of Defense Michelle A. Flournoy, the DOD’s highest policy official, but she has fallen sick in Washington.

In her place, retired Lt. Gen. Chip Gregson, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, will attend as the senior U.S. defense official.