North Korea gets tough with US
2003-05-05 13:03
Seoul - North Korea threatened on Monday to scuttle all nuclear talks unless the United States responds positively to Pyongyang's offer to dismantle its nuclear programme in exchange for economic and diplomatic payoffs.
North Korea also accused Washington of making efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis "more complicated" by again including the Stalinist state on a list of countries suspected of sponsoring terrorism.
The ruling Workers Party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said: "If the US does not positively respond to North Korea's bold proposal, it will be held accountable for scuttling all efforts for dialogue and seriously straining the situation."
It denounced Washington for ignoring the North's proposal, presented at last month's Beijing's talks meant to defuse the six-month-old nuclear crisis.
At the talks, North Korea offered to ditch its nuclear and missile programmes in return for economic and diplomatic benefits, according to US accounts.
Tough negotiating stance
The United States has demanded the verified and irreversible scrapping of the nuclear programmes as a prelude to substantive talks, while North Korea has asked for security guarantees first.
Washington has adopted a tough negotiating stance, insisting that any concessions made to North Korea would be tantamount to a reward for "bad behaviour".
The New York Times reported on Monday that Washington was shifting the focus of its North Korea policy from preventing the production of nuclear material to blocking its export.
The new approach was discussed at talks this weekend between US President George W Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, it said.
"The central worry is not what they've got, but where it goes," said an unnamed US official.
The policy of preventing North Korea from going nuclear dates to 1994 when then-president Bill Clinton warned Pyongyang that producing plutonium could result in a US attack on its nuclear facilities.
'Masters of ambiguity'
Privately, however, US officials are saying that policy is no longer sustainable, in part because of South Korea's opposition to military action on the Korean peninsula, the Times said.
Pyongyang told the United States last month it had nuclear weapons and threatened to prove it with a "display". But Washington has been unable to confirm Pyongyang's assertion.
US secretary of state Colin Powell said on television on Sunday that North Korea's leaders were "masters of ambiguity".
"We can't confirm that with our intelligence, but that's what they say. What they have got in response to these statements is nothing from us except condemnation," he said.
"Their nuclear weapons are not going to purchase them any political standing that will cause us to be frightened or to think that somehow we now have to march to their tune."
On Monday, a North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson blasted Washington's report last week that kept Pyongyang on a list of "state supporters of terrorism" along with Iran, Cuba, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria.
The nuclear standoff began with Washington's disclosure in October that North Korea had admitted to running a secret uranium-enrichment programme.
North Korea has since expelled United Nations nuclear inspectors, withdrawn from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and reactivated its mothballed plant for weapons-grade plutonium.
- AFX