North Korea warns US: Don't treat us like Iraq

North Korea, laying out tough terms ahead of six-way talks, warned the United States yesterday against treating it like Iraq and using intrusive inspections to force the communist state to abandon its nuclear programme.

In a show of rigidity that analysts said represented North Korea's customary way of leveraging a weak hand, North Korea's Foreign Ministry revived Pyongyang's long-standing demand for a non-aggression treaty and diplomatic relations with Washington.

The treaty and diplomatic normalisation were needed to demonstrate a "US switchover in its hostile policy" towards the reclusive communist state, the ministry said in a statement published by the North's official KCNA news agency.

"It is clear that as long as the US insists on its hostile policy toward the DPRK, the latter will not abandon its nuclear deterrent force," said the statement. DPRK are the initials for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"It will be considered that the US has practically given up its hostile policy toward the DPRK when a non-aggression treaty with legal binding is concluded and diplomatic relations are established between the DPRK and the U.S," the ministry said.

The lengthy statement blamed Washington for the 10-month-old crisis and dismissed talk of a multinational inspection regime for its nuclear facilities as a US ruse to disarm North Korea. "It is a mistake if the US attempts to force an 'earlier inspection' upon the DPRK, putting it on a par with Iraq," it said, calling such inspections "impossible and unthinkable".

Nuclear talks are likely to begin in Beijing on August 27, although the date has not been finalised. The talks will bring together the United States, both Koreas, China, Russia and Japan.

Participating countries continued to fine-tune their approach to talks. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing arrived in Seoul yesterday after visiting Japan, and envoys from South and North Korea were holding separate meetings in Moscow.

Asked about the North's demands, Li told reporters at Seoul's airport: "That's between the two countries directly involved to discuss between themselves."

China and Russia, who backed the North in the 1950-53 Korean War and remain its closest allies, have urged Washington to address North Korea's security concerns. South Korean officials have said they expect that issue to dominate the Beijing talks.

Wednesday's statement said the US threat was made clear in President George W. Bush's 2002 speech branding North Korea part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran, and in an American policy envisioning pre-emptive strikes against rogue states.

North Korea also rejected ideas floated by the United States and others that fell short of a non-aggression pact, including written US pledges not to attack and talk of collective regional security guarantees for the regime.