Beijing, Aug 27: In the first day of six-nation talks to resolve the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear programme, North Korea today warned that it would build a more powerful deterrent unless Washington issued a formal security guarantee, Russian officials said. In its opening speech at the talks, Pyongyang warned that if Washington fails to take its security concerns into account, it will "create even more powerful ways of containing the threat from the US", reported a Rusian news agency quoting a Russian official.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, who headed the country's delegation to the talks, said that Pyongyang would abandon its nuclear programme if the US wrote into legal document that it would not attack North Korea.
Describing the talks as "fairly fragile", Losyukov said that North Korea "will not allow any inspections until it is assured that the US threat has been neutralised". Russia, which is acting as a mediator between Pyongyang and Washington, said Moscow supports the six-party talks to continue.
"If the talks were broken, the situation on the Korean peninsula would become threatening and neighbouring countries could be affected," Losyukov said.
The head of the Russian delegation also said that Pyongyang is well aware of the situation and clear that peace is better than tension, he said. An earlier report quoted North Korea's chief negotiator Kim Yong Il as saying that Pyongyang has "no nuclear weapons... And has no goals of developing them". However, the report was denied by senior Japanese and South Korean officials. Bureau Report