North Korea called United States Vice-President Dick Cheney a ”bloodthirsty beast” and said on Thursday his recent remarks labelling its ruler Kim Jong Il irresponsible are another reason for it to stay away from six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.
”What Cheney uttered at a time when the issue of the six-party talks is high on the agenda is little short of telling [North Korea] not to come out for the talks,” an unnamed North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson said, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Nearly a year since the last session of the six-nation talks, North Korea has refused to return to the table, citing a ”hostile” US policy. More recently, it has also called for an apology for being labelled one of the world’s ”outposts of tyranny” by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In a Sunday interview on CNN, Cheney called North Korean leader Kim ”one of the world’s most irresponsible leaders” who runs a police state and leaves his people in poverty and malnutrition.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan described the communist country’s comments as ”more of the same kind of bluster we hear from North Korea from time to time. When they make provocative statements, they only further isolate themselves.”
US President George Bush himself has sounded a more conciliatory tone, referring to Kim this week at a news conference using the title ”Mr”.
Rice has also said the US recognises the North as a sovereign nation, and US officials insist they have no intention to attack the communist state.
But North Korea said on Thursday that the remarks by Cheney, ”boss of the hawkish hard-liners, revealed the true colours of this group steering the implementation of the policy of the Bush administration”,
The North also levelled a bitter personal attack on Cheney, saying he is ”hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast as he has drenched various parts of the world in blood”.
Despite the tough talk, the North said it maintains its commitment to ending the nuclear stand-off on the Korean Peninsula and seeking a peaceful solution to the current stand-off.
”But if the US persists in its wrong behaviour, misjudging our magnanimity and patience as a sign of weakness, this will entail more serious consequences,” the spokesperson said, without any elaboration.
Earlier this week, Pyongyang’s state media also lashed out at Rice in harsh personal terms, implying she is in control of the White House.
Meanwhile, the North also Thursday criticised a US Defence Department decision to halt missions to recover remains of thousands of US soldiers from the Korean War and said it will disband its own search unit.
”In consequence, the US remains buried in Korea can never be recovered but are bound to be reduced to earth with the flow of time,” a North Korean army spokesperson said, according to the KCNA.
Washington said it was halting the missions, which began in 1996, out of concerns for US troops’ safety. Pyongyang denied they had ever been at risk and said the Americans had been able to remove remains ”without having even a single fingernail hurt”.
Also on Thursday, the North demanded the US withdraw 15 F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighters recently deployed in South Korea on a regular annual training exercise.
The latest nuclear stand-off with North Korea was sparked in late 2002 when US officials accused Pyongyang of running a secret uranium-enrichment programme in violation of a 1994 agreement. The North later pulled out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and restarted its main reactor — which it shut down this year and said it had removed the fuel rods, a step that would enable it to harvest more weapons-grade plutonium.
The last round of six-nation talks — including China, Japan, Russia, the US and the two Koreas — took place in June last year.
Three rounds of the negotiations in Beijing have failed to lead to any breakthroughs. — Sapa-AP