- (AFP) -- North Korea insisted a binding non-aggression
treaty was the only way to solve the ongoing nuclear crisis and said it
had no interest in holding multilateral talks on the issue.
-
- "The only way to solve the nuclear issue on the
Korean peninsula is the conclusion of a non-aggression treaty which will
have binding force after going through (the US) Congress," Pyongyang's
ambassador in Beijing Choe Jin-Su said at a press conference Friday.
-
- "We are not only opposed to any attempt to internationalise
the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula but also we will never participate
in any form of multilateral talks."
-
- Choe called the Bush administration as an "untrustworthy,
rogue group."
-
- Washington has rejected Pyongyang's demands, insisting
the North must first dismantle its nuclear threat.
-
- The crisis was triggered last October when US envoy James
Kelly confronted the Stalinist state during a visit to Pyongyang with US
claims that North Korea had launched an enriched uranium program in violation
of a 1994 anti-nuclear deal with Washington.
-
- Despite North Korea's denials, the United States suspended
fuel aid to Pyongyang, which responded late last year by reactivating the
mothballed Yongbyon plutonium-producing nuclear complex and expelling UN
monitors.
-
- Washington and its allies are insisting that Pyongyang
reverse its decision this month to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty.
-
- <http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030131/1/36ziqi.html>
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