- SEOUL (Reuters) - A defiant
North Korea, facing heavy pressure to scrap a secret nuclear weapons program,
warned the United States on Tuesday it would take unspecified "tougher
counter-action" if Washington did not agree to talks on the issue.
-
- "If the U.S. persists in its moves to pressurize
and stifle the DPRK (North Korea) by force, the latter will have no option
but to take a tougher counter-action," the ruling Workers Party daily
Rodong Sinmun said.
-
- "The only way out for the U.S. is to opt for reconciliation
and peace, not strong-arm policy," said the article, carried by the
North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
-
- On Monday, North Korea's number two leader, Kim Yong-nam,
told South Korea's visiting unification minister that the communist state
was ready for dialogue.
-
- The U.S. envoy in Seoul, speaking on Tuesday, held out
little hope for negotiations, saying Pyongyang had lost all credibility.
Ambassador Thomas Hubbard said, however, that Washington sought a peaceful
solution to the crisis, and would rely on diplomatic pressure to persuade
the North to scrap its nuclear project.
-
- Senior North Korean officials acknowledged in early October
that their country had been secretly pursuing a uranium reprocessing program,
putting it in contravention of at least four international commitments.
-
- These include a 1994 "Agreed Framework" with
the United States, which averted an earlier nuclear crisis.
-
- The North Korean admission came during talks in Pyongyang
with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly after the American delegation
had shown them evidence of their unavowed nuclear activities.
-
- "Kelly made an ultimatum-style notice that the DPRK-U.S.
dialogue cannot be expected and the favorably developing inter-Korean relations
and DPRK-Japan relations might collapse unless the DPRK clears the U.S.
of its "security concerns," Rodong Sinmun said.
-
- "Such threatening and high-handed practice... was
a vivid expression of the U.S. imperialists' brigandish and arrogant nature,"
the article added.
-
- "The U.S. is now calling for "arms reduction"
of the DPRK, making a hue and cry over its "threat." but such
row does not stand to reason and it will get the U.S. nowhere," it
added.
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