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N Korea vows action
24/12/2006 10:52 - (SA)
Seoul, South Korea - North Korean state media praised the country's leader on Sunday for standing up to its enemies a day after the army's chief of staff vowed to take action against US sanctions after nuclear disarmament talks ended in deadlock.
In a lengthy editorial, Rodong Sinmun newspaper lauded North Korean leader Kim Jong Il for his "iron-like pluck and grit" and for trying to build a powerful military that no enemy would dare confront, the North's Korean Central News Agency said.
The newspaper also said the North displayed its determination to "mercilessly punish aggressors trying to pick a fight with us " - a possible reference to its October 9 nuclear test that sent jitters across the globe.
On Saturday, army chief of staff Kim Yong Chun accused the United States of demanding that North Korea unilaterally end its nuclear programme while refusing to lift financial restrictions the US imposed on the communist government for its alleged money laundering and counterfeiting of $100 bills.
The nuclear talks - held in Beijing this week after a 13-month break due to a North Korean boycott over the US sanctions - ended on Friday without an agreement to move ahead on the North's nuclear disarmament. Last year, the North pledged to disarm in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
Negotiators said the North Koreans refused to talk about their nuclear weapons programme until the US lifts its financial restrictions.
"Sanctions and pressure will never work on (North Korea). If the hostile forces continue escalating sanctions and pressure against (the North), it will resolutely react to them with stronger countermeasures," Kim said in a speech to thousands of top government and military officials in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital.
Kim did not elaborate on what he meant by stronger countermeasures in the speech, broadcast on North Korean Central TV.
The meeting was held on the eve of the 15th anniversary of Kim Jong Il's assumption of the command of the country's 1.1 million-strong military, the world's fifth largest.
North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan said on Friday that his country - which conducted its first nuclear weapons test in October - would bolster its atomic arsenal in response to US pressure.
"The US is taking a tactic of both dialogue and pressure, and carrots and sticks," Kim told reporters in Beijing. "We are responding with dialogue and a shield, and by a shield we are saying we will further improve our deterrent."
Delegates at the talks - which involve China, the US the two Koreas, Russia and Japan - agreed to meet again "at the earliest opportunity", but did not set a date.
The main US envoy, Christopher Hill, said the talks would reconvene in "weeks, not months."
- AP
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