NORTH KOREA: North Korea said yesterday it would display a nuclear deterrent at "an appropriate time" to end debate over its nuclear status if the United States delayed a solution to an impasse over Pyongyang's atomic ambitions.
In comments published in English by the official KCNA news agency, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman also criticised calls for a fresh round of six-way nuclear talks, saying such discussions were meaningless unless Washington dropped its hostility toward Pyongyang.
"When an appropriate time comes, the DPRK will take a measure to open its nuclear deterrent to the public as a physical force and then there will be no need to have any more argument," the ministry spokesman said, noting some people doubted North Korea's nuclear capability.
The statement appeared to address comments last week by US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, that Washington had drafted new ideas on security assurances to offer to reclusive North Korea.
Mr Powell said the US envisaged a public written document, preferably signed by some of North Korea's neighbours, but not the formal non-aggression treaty Pyongyang demands.
North Korea said it was not sure whether the US idea was "intended to shirk its responsibility for settling this issue between the DPRK and the US or an artifice to buy time to win the presidential election in 2004".
If the US put off dealing with the issue, "during that time the DPRK will have enough time to perfect and strengthen necessary means which has already been opened to the public", the spokesman said.
China, Russia, the two Koreas, Japan and the US held an inconclusive first round of talks in Beijing in late August.
All sides pledged to avoid steps that would aggravate the year-old dispute. But early this month, Pyongyang said it had redirected plutonium extracted from thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods to help enhance its deterrent force.
Pyongyang wants Washington to sign and ratify a non-aggression treaty before it will dismantle its banned nuclear arms programmes. - (Reuters)