North Korea on Wednesday described the UN’s atomic watchdog as a ”henchman” of the United States, accusing it of applying double standards to the Stalinist state in the ongoing nuclear standoff.
Rodong Sinmun, the official daily of the ruling Korean Workers Party, also said the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) discriminates against non-nuclear states in favor of nuclear states.
The IAEA ((International Atomic Energy Agency) is a puppy ”dancing to the tune of the US, departing from the principle of impartiality which it should regard as its life and soul,” the paper said in a commentary.
It accused Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, of siding with the United States in the nuclear stand-off ”for no reason in a bid to fan up the atmosphere of international pressure.”
ElBaradei, a US ”henchman and mouthpiece,” applied ”partial and unreasonable double standards” in dealing with North Korea, it said.
”This goes to clearly prove that the IAEA has been totally reduced to a shock brigade and a henchman executing the US policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK (Noth Korea),” it said, according to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency.
”If the NPT is to be one based on impartiality and equality, it should be applied to all signatories on an equal footing without discrimination. But the NPT is characterised by serious discrimination and partiality of the nuclear states against non-nuclear states,” it said.
North Korea withdrew from the NPT earlier this month after expelling IAEA inspectors and announcing plans to reactivate nuclear facilities frozen under a 1994 deal with the United States.
The moves came after the United States and its alies stopped the annual shipment of 500 000 tons of fuel to the energy-starved communist state, saying that Pyongyang admitted to operating a secret nuclear programme in violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework. – Sapa-AFP