North Korea to ignore talks after Cheney comments
North Korea said today recent remarks by US vice-president Dick Cheney about leader Kim Jong Il, labelling him an “irresponsible” leader, are another reason for it to stay away from international nuclear disarmament talks.
“His slander … is tantamount to telling us not to come to the table for the talks,” an unnamed North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
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 said 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.
“And he obviously wants to throw his weight around and become a nuclear power,” Cheney said.
President George Bush himself has sounded a more conciliatory tone, referring to Kim this week at a news conference using the title “Mr”.
But North Korea said today Cheney’s comment “finally reveals the entirety of the hawkish party that is dominating the Bush administration’s policies”.
“And we cannot but sincerely rethink whether it was a good move to deal with such a hawkish party on the nuclear issues and six-party talks,” North Korea said.
Pyongyang never shies from tough rhetoric itself against the US, and this week upped the ante when its state media launched a scathing personal attack on Rice implying she was in control of the White House.
“It’s a sad house where the hen crows louder than the rooster,” state Radio Pyongyang said in a broadcast monitored by South Korea’s Unification Ministry.
