Seoul, Jan 26: Between volleys of abuse, North Korea demanded Washington meet to discuss the nuclear crisis as a South Korean envoy prepared on Sunday to go to Pyongyang and the U.N. nuclear watchdog considered delaying an emergency meeting. The latest flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at persuading the communist North to renounce its atomic arms ambitions appeared to have given the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency pause in its plans for an emergency session as early as February 3.
"The IAEA has discussed whether to meet on February 3 but they have not decided yet when to meet," Chon Young-woo, an official at South Korea's Foreign Ministry in charge of UN affairs, said.
"The decision will be made tomorrow (Monday)," he said.

Seoul's Yonhap news agency quoted a spokeswoman for the atomic watchdog as saying no final decision had yet been taken on the date for the meeting that could set the stage for moving the issue to the U.N. Security Council. The council has the power to impose sanctions on the communist North.
Pyongyang, which President George W. Bush has bracketed with Iraq and Iran as members of an "axis of evil", has said U.N. sanctions would be a declaration of war.
The crisis was sparked in October when the United States said the North had admitted developing nuclear arms. Pyongyang later ejected U.N. nuclear inspectors, removed seals from a mothballed reactor and pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Bureau Report