Seoul, May 05: North Korea today threatened to scuttle all nuclear talks unless the United States responds positively to the North's offer to dismantle its nuclear programme in exchange for economic and diplomatic payoffs.
The North's ruling Workers Party newspaper, Rodong
Sinmun, accused Washington of ignoring the North's proposal,
presented at talks in Beijing last month meant to defuse the
six-month-old nuclear crisis.
"If the US does not positively respond to the DPRK's
(North Korea's) bold proposal, it will be held accountable for
scuttling all efforts for dialogue and seriously straining the
situation," it said.
At the talks last month, North Korea offered to ditch
its nuclear and missile programmes in return for economic and
diplomatic benefits, according to US accounts.
The United States has demanded the verified and
irreversible scrapping of the Stalinist state's nuclear
programmes as a prelude to substantive talks while the North
has asked for security guarantees first.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday that
North Korea are "masters of ambiguity," referring to the
North's statements that it already has a nuclear arsenal.
Powell said in an interview with US television network
NBC that North Korea claims to have reprocessed all of its
uranium, which would produce enough plutonium to develop five
or six weapons.
"We can't confirm that with our intelligence, but that's
what they say. What they have gotten in response to these
statements is nothing from us except condemnation," he said.
Bureau Report
