In yesterday’s statement, the foreign ministry official, who was not identified, condemned US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s for “slandering” North Korea and undermining efforts to bring Pyongyang back to six-party talks.
“At the recent Asia Security Conference held in Singapore Rumsfeld malignantly slandered the DPRK, asserting its regime is keen on the arms buildup only and it is a miserable country,” the spokesman said.
North Korea yesterday ruled out new talks on its nuclear ambitions unless Washington met unspecified conditions, in a setback to efforts to resolve the standoff.
North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said a fourth round of talks would take place only when Washington agreed to Pyongyang’s demands.
“As for the resumption of the six-party talks, it entirely depends on the US response to the DPRK’s (North Korea’s) call for creating conditions and an environment for their resumption,” a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying.
The statement punctured hopes for an early resumption of talks raised by China, whose ambassador to the United Nations had indicated that North Korea had decided to attend a new round of talks soon.
The ambassador, Wang Guangya, earlier indicated that negotiations could start speedily but gave no date for the resumption.
“I think it’s in the next few weeks,” and preferably before the end of June, Wang said when asked about the timing. “I think it will be pretty soon.”
The ambassador made the announcement just after the United States held rare direct talks with North Korean counterparts in New York on Monday.
US officials said the Stalinist state had indicated in the talks that it was ready to resume negotiations.
North Korea had until now maintained that it was ready to return to the talks once conditions were “mature”.
As a precondition, it has called for an end to US “hostility” and also an end to US verbal criticism of the Stalinist regime and its leader Kim Jong-Il.
Pyongyang has bristled at US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s reference to North Korea as an “outpost of tyranny” in January and Bush’s more recent reference to the North Korean leader as a “tyrant” who starves his people.
In yesterday’s statement, the foreign ministry official, who was not identified, condemned US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s for “slandering” North Korea and undermining efforts to bring Pyongyang back to six-party talks.
“At the recent Asia Security Conference held in Singapore Rumsfeld malignantly slandered the DPRK, asserting its regime is keen on the arms buildup only and it is a miserable country,” the spokesman said.
“This clearly tells he is an imbecile quite ignorant of diplomacy, dialogue and negotiation.”
Senior US and North Korean diplomats met in New York on Monday.
Joseph DiTrani, US special envoy to the six-party negotiations, and Jim Foster, head of the State Department’s Office of Korean Affairs, met with Pyongyang’s UN ambassador and his deputy for the second time in less than a month.
The US State Department said that North Korea had informed the United States at the meeting that it would return to the nuclear negotiations. No date was mentioned.-AFP
