BBC NEWS
N Korea suspends nuclear talks
North Korea will stay away from talks on its nuclear programme for an "indefinite period", according to the nation's foreign ministry.

Pyongyang said there was no point in the talks since the US had termed North Korea an "outpost of tyranny".

The North also repeated a claim to have built nuclear weapons for self-defence.

But US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the communist state would only deepen its international isolation if it pulled out of the talks.

"The world has given them a way out and we hope they will take that way out," she said at a news conference with European Union leaders.

Washington and Pyongyang have been locked in a diplomatic standoff since October 2002, when the US accused North Korea of operating an illegal uranium programme.

Since then three rounds of talks have been held - including China, Japan, Russia and South Korea - but little progress has been made.

The North Korean foreign ministry's statement, which was reported by state news agency KCNA, said: "We have wanted the six-party talks but we are compelled to suspend our participation... for an indefinite period".

There is no justification for us to participate in the six-party talks again, given that the Bush administration termed [us] an 'outpost of tyranny'
North Korean statement

It added that Pyongyang had "manufactured nukes for self-defence" and would take "a measure to bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal" in order to "protect its ideology, system, freedom and democracy".

This is North Korea's most explicit public assertion that it possesses nuclear weapons. Senior members of the regime have privately spoken about its nuclear capability on several occasions in the past.

US and other intelligence agencies believe the North could already have built a small number of weapons, variously estimated at between two and ten.

US 'antagonism'

North Korea's anger appears to be directed at several keynote speeches made by US President George Bush and other senior members of his administration as they started their new terms in office.

"The second-term Bush administration's intention to antagonise the DPRK (North Korea) and isolate and stifle it at any cost has become quite clear," the statement said, citing the president's inaugural address and his State of the Union speech.

Condoleezza Rice's description of the isolated nation as an "outpost of tyranny" was also singled out for criticism.


US RHETORIC ON NORTH
19 Jan: Condoleezza Rice refers to North as an "outpost of tyranny"
20 Jan: No mention in George Bush's inauguration speech, though US goal was to "end tyranny in our world"
2 Feb: Mr Bush's State of the Union address says US working with governments in Asia to convince North Korea to abandon nuclear ambitions

"There is no justification for us to participate in the six-party talks again, given that the Bush administration termed the DPRK, a dialogue partner, an 'outpost of tyranny'," the statement said.

Some observers had hoped that Mr Bush's State of the Union speech would actually increase the chance of the stalled nuclear talks going ahead, because the president refrained from direct criticism of North Korea.

In a past speech, in 2002, he famously described Iraq, Iran and North Korea as part of an "axis of evil".

In Thursday's statement, Pyongyang also had strong words to say about Japan, which it described as "persistently pursuing its hostile policy toward the DPRK, toeing the US line".

It accused Tokyo of trying to prevent normalised relations by making false claims over the "abduction issue" - an ongoing row about missing Japanese nationals which North Korea admits to having kidnapped in the 1970s and 80s.

Pyongyang claims the issue has now been "settled".

Just hours before North Korea's statement was released, John Bolton, the US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said that Washington believed Pyongyang was still continuing to produce nuclear weapons.

"To whatever extent the North Koreans are proceeding with their programme, and we believe they are, the absence of progress in six-party talks means they are making further progress toward their increased capability," Mr Bolton told reporters during a visit to Tokyo.

"Time is not on our side," he added.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia...fic/4252481.stm

Published: 2005/02/10 11:47:40 GMT

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Feb 10, 2005
Rice Warns That North Korea Should Avoid Confrontation With World Over Nuclear Issue
By Anne Gearan
The Associated Press


LUXEMBOURG (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that North Korea should return to disarmament talks and avoid a path toward further international isolation. "The world has given them a way out and we hope they will take that way out," she said.

Rice's comments came after North Korea stated explicitly that it has nuclear weapons and said that it needs them as protection against an increasingly hostile United States.

"The North Koreans have been told by the president of the United States that the United States has no intention of attacking or invading North Korea," Rice said during a news conference here with European Union leaders.

"There is a path for the North Koreans that would put them in a more reasonable relationship with the rest of the world," she said, referring to an international disarmament effort that includes the United States.

Giving up nuclear weapons would offer hope for a better life to that country's people, Rice said. North Korea is desperately poor, and people are fleeing the country to avoid starvation.

The North Korean statement may be a bluff meant to put the United States back on its heels before the regime finally does return to the disarmament table. North Korea told a visiting U.S. congressional delegation last month that it would return to those six-nation talks.

Asked to analyze the thinking in Pyongyang, Rice was almost dismissive.

"I'm not sure anyone ever gets very far by trying to second-guess the motivation of the North Korean regime," she said.

Rice said the United States isn't treating North Korea differently from Iran, another nation in President Bush's famous rhetorical axis of evil.

"The message is clear: give up these aspirations for nuclear weapons and you know life can be different," Rice said. She also said that is the same message that Libya understood in renouncing its own nuclear ambitions.

Unlike Iran, North Korea had not been a frequent topic during Rice's breakneck tour of eight European countries and Israel over the past week. She also visited the West Bank and the Vatican.

Rice used the trip to reach out to Europe, and Europe reached back.

It is too soon to measure success, but Rice seemed pleased as she neared the end of the breakneck tour.

The trip, Rice's first as the top U.S. diplomat, engaged European leaders, intellectuals and curious citizens. Interest in her itinerary grew steadily as she made a case for a fresh start after rancor over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Iran's nuclear development program was a topic for most of Rice's meetings with European politicians.

"It's been a really great conversation," she said Wednesday in Brussels, Belgium. "I feel very good about what we've done here and the conversation that we've had."

Rice's trip was concluding Thursday in Luxembourg, which currently holds the rotating European Union presidency, with meetings to lay groundwork for the Feb. 22 EU-U.S. summit in Brussels with Bush.

The 2003 Iraq war divided the United States and longtime allies, and U.S. policies there continue to be widely unpopular even among Europeans whose governments, such as Italy and Poland, sent significant numbers of troops to Iraq.

"The times are different now than they were a year ago or two years ago when we did have our differences, not with everyone, but with a number of states," Rice said in Belgium. "While we still had common interests and common values I don't think we had a common agenda for a while on what was really before us, at least in regards to Iraq."

The success of elections in Iraq last month, however, gives the United States and its allies common purpose, Rice said.

Several countries committed to help train Iraqi forces and participate in an upcoming NATO training mission after lunch with Rice and NATO Secretary-General Japp de Hoop Scheffer.

"I have to say that it is the best discussion of Iraq that we have had as an alliance since the Saddam Hussein regime fell, and, in fact, well before that, because it was clearly a unified alliance," Rice said.

Rice's tour included France and Germany, two of the United States' strongest critics on Iraq, and two of six nations that have refused to participate in a postwar NATO force there. She also visited Britain, Italy and Poland, all allies in Iraq, and Turkey on the European portion of her trip.

AP-ES-02-10-05 0758EST

This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBDVAKY05E.html

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Right gmanders777, it's frightening!