North Korea rejects dialogue with US
North Korea said today that it was not interested in dialogue with the US because of what it described as Washington’s ‘‘vicious hostile policy’’.
State-run media in Pyongyang also demanded an apology from US President George W Bush for criticizing Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s leader.
Last week, Mr Bush said he was disappointed in Kim for not responding positively to a US offer in June to resume talks, and described the North Korean as ‘‘so suspicious, so secretive’’.
Kim, who inherited power in 1994 from his late father and national founder, Kim Il Sung, was incensed by his comments.
‘‘His remarks prove that he does not know any elementary etiquette and has no common sense as a statesman, not to speak of a head of state,’’ the state-run newspaper, Minju Joson, said in an editorial.
US-North Korean relations made strides in the last months of the Clinton administration, but stalled when President Bush suspended talks as part of a policy review following his inauguration. The momentum was never regained.
‘‘All this is attributable to the vicious hostile policy of the Bush administration,’’ Minju Joson said.
It also said that because of US policy, North Korea ‘‘is not interested in any dialogue and improvement of relations with the US’’.
The report was carried by KCNA, the North’s foreign news outlet.
The US ambassador in Seoul today said he hoped North Korea would accept the invitation to resume talks.
‘‘We are prepared to meet with North Korea any time any where without any preconditions. Either side can raise any issue they want to raise,’’ Ambassador Thomas Hubbard told South Korean business leaders at a lunch.
North Korea spurned the US offer for dialogue because of Washington’s suggestion that they discuss possible withdrawals or reductions of communist troops near the border with South Korea. Previous talks focused on US efforts to curb the North’s long-range missile program.
US-North Korean tension has affected the reconciliation process between North and South Korea, which resumed last month after a six-month hiatus. But the North has called off several exchanges in recent weeks and the process again appears in jeopardy.
The US keeps 37,000 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, but is also a major aid donor to North Korea.
