Gates dismisses military option against NK

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Sunday ruled out a military option

against North Korea after the North's torpedoing of a South Korean warship that

killed 46 sailors in March, Yonhap News reported in Washington.

"As long as the regime doesn't care about what the outside world thinks of it, as long as it doesn't care about the well-being of its people, there is not a lot you can do about it, to be quite frank, unless you are willing at some point to use military force,"

Gates said in an interview with BBC. "And nobody wants to do that."

Gates' remarks came one day after he spoke to the annual regional security forum of defense ministers from 28 countries, called the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore, and said that the U.S. was reviewing "additional options" against North Korea without specifying, in order not to set "the wrong precedent."

South Korea severed all ties with North Korea, except for the joint industrial complex in the North's border town of Kaesong, and took the case to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions after an international team of investigators concluded late last month that a North Korean mini-submarine torpedoed the Cheonan near the inter-Korean border in the Yellow Sea.

North Korea denies involvement and has threatened all-out war if sanctioned.

Gates supported South Korea's bid to condemn North Korea in the Security Council.

"You can bring together additional pressure; you can do another resolution at the

U.N.," he said.

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