TB4000
08-23-2004, 08:22 PM
North Korea Says Talks with U.S. Are Pointless
Mon Aug 23, 7:02 PM ET
By Martin Nesirky
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) described President Bush (news - web sites) on Monday as a tyrannical political imbecile who put Adolf Hitler in the shade and said Pyongyang could see no justification for talks with his administration.
Six-party working-level talks on the communist North's nuclear weapons ambitions had been planned for August but have yet to materialize.
A September date for more senior talks is also in question, although diplomats note Pyongyang often raises its rhetorical voice before attending talks or compromising.
South Korea (news - web sites)'s foreign ministry said on Monday its top nuclear negotiators would visit Beijing and Tokyo this week for consultations aimed at restarting the main talks.
In a strongly worded statement published by the official KCNA news agency, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said Bush had hurled "malignant slanders and calumnies" against Pyongyang's leadership under Kim Jong-il.
"This clearly proves that the DPRK was quite right when it commented that he is a political imbecile bereft of even elementary morality as a human being and a bad guy, much less being a politician," the spokesman said. "Bush is a tyrant that puts Hitler into the shade."
DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli rejected the North Korean comments as "obviously inappropriate" and said U.S., Chinese and other officials still aimed to schedule working-level and more senior talks by the end of September.
Bush said in a presidential election campaign speech last Wednesday in Hudson, Wisconsin, he had made the decision to bring in other countries to help persuade the North to disarm.
"NO" COULD STILL MEAN "YES"
"I felt it was important to bring other countries into the mix, like China and Japan and South Korea and Russia, so there's now five countries saying to the tyrant in North Korea, disarm, disarm," he said.
The North Korean spokesman said it had been impossible to hold working-level talks between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States because of what he called hostile U.S. policy.
He said the latest comments had made matters worse.
"This made it quite impossible for the DPRK to go to the talks and deprived it of any elementary justification to sit at the negotiating table with the U.S.," he said.
Some North Korea analysts say the bluster masks Pyongyang's true aim; to bide its time until it is clear whether Bush or Democrat challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) is elected in November's presidential election.
Seoul will try to seek out enough common ground in the negotiations to try to bring the countries back to the table this week through consultations with China -- the North's most trusted ally -- and Japan.
Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck will meet his new counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, in China on Tuesday and Japan's top negotiator, foreign ministry director general Mitoji Yabunaka, in Japan Thursday, a Seoul official said.
South Korea's financial markets were unaffected by the North's latest outburst, which followed a less firmly worded threat last week to stay away from further talks.
Another South Korean official told Reuters the North was not unequivocally ruling out talks and said there were still five weeks until the end of September, by which time full six-way talks are supposed to be held.
"North Korea has never categorically said it will not be attending the fourth round of six-party talks," the South Korean official said.
In a North Korean context, such words as "deprived" and "elementary justification" were quite different from saying Pyongyang would not attend the talks, the official said. (Additional reporting by Jack Kim and Pae Su-jung)
Mon Aug 23, 7:02 PM ET
By Martin Nesirky
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) described President Bush (news - web sites) on Monday as a tyrannical political imbecile who put Adolf Hitler in the shade and said Pyongyang could see no justification for talks with his administration.
Six-party working-level talks on the communist North's nuclear weapons ambitions had been planned for August but have yet to materialize.
A September date for more senior talks is also in question, although diplomats note Pyongyang often raises its rhetorical voice before attending talks or compromising.
South Korea (news - web sites)'s foreign ministry said on Monday its top nuclear negotiators would visit Beijing and Tokyo this week for consultations aimed at restarting the main talks.
In a strongly worded statement published by the official KCNA news agency, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said Bush had hurled "malignant slanders and calumnies" against Pyongyang's leadership under Kim Jong-il.
"This clearly proves that the DPRK was quite right when it commented that he is a political imbecile bereft of even elementary morality as a human being and a bad guy, much less being a politician," the spokesman said. "Bush is a tyrant that puts Hitler into the shade."
DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli rejected the North Korean comments as "obviously inappropriate" and said U.S., Chinese and other officials still aimed to schedule working-level and more senior talks by the end of September.
Bush said in a presidential election campaign speech last Wednesday in Hudson, Wisconsin, he had made the decision to bring in other countries to help persuade the North to disarm.
"NO" COULD STILL MEAN "YES"
"I felt it was important to bring other countries into the mix, like China and Japan and South Korea and Russia, so there's now five countries saying to the tyrant in North Korea, disarm, disarm," he said.
The North Korean spokesman said it had been impossible to hold working-level talks between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States because of what he called hostile U.S. policy.
He said the latest comments had made matters worse.
"This made it quite impossible for the DPRK to go to the talks and deprived it of any elementary justification to sit at the negotiating table with the U.S.," he said.
Some North Korea analysts say the bluster masks Pyongyang's true aim; to bide its time until it is clear whether Bush or Democrat challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) is elected in November's presidential election.
Seoul will try to seek out enough common ground in the negotiations to try to bring the countries back to the table this week through consultations with China -- the North's most trusted ally -- and Japan.
Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck will meet his new counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, in China on Tuesday and Japan's top negotiator, foreign ministry director general Mitoji Yabunaka, in Japan Thursday, a Seoul official said.
South Korea's financial markets were unaffected by the North's latest outburst, which followed a less firmly worded threat last week to stay away from further talks.
Another South Korean official told Reuters the North was not unequivocally ruling out talks and said there were still five weeks until the end of September, by which time full six-way talks are supposed to be held.
"North Korea has never categorically said it will not be attending the fourth round of six-party talks," the South Korean official said.
In a North Korean context, such words as "deprived" and "elementary justification" were quite different from saying Pyongyang would not attend the talks, the official said. (Additional reporting by Jack Kim and Pae Su-jung)