North Korea demands apology from US
North Korea demanded an apology from the US today for designating the communist state as an “outpost of tyranny,” and threatened to resume long-range missile tests.
However, the North also held out the possibility of returning to nuclear disarmament talks if Washington agrees to coexist with the communist country.
North Korea declared last month that it had nuclear weapons and was boycotting six nation talks aimed at ending its nuclear ambitions.
At the time, it cited US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s designation of the country as one of the world’s “outposts of tyranny” as evidence that Washington has not abandoned its “hostile” policy toward North Korea since President Bush first included it in his “axis of evil,” along with Iran and pre-war Iraq.
“The US should apologise for his above-said remarks and withdraw them, renounce its hostile policy aimed at a regime change in the DPRK and clarify its political willingness to coexist with the DPRK in peace and show it in practice,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said, using the acronym of the country’s formal name – Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
It said North Korea “will go to the talks any time if the US takes a trustworthy sincere attitude and moves to provide conditions and justification for the resumption of the six-party talks”.
The original Korean-language statement also said North Korea might resume long-range missile tests, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
