Post by Salem6 on Feb 11, 2005 6:48:04 GMT
North Korea has announced it is suspending its participation in six-party talks over its nuclear programme "indefinitely", and has for the first time admitted it has built nuclear weapons for self-defence.
Pyongyang said it will boost its nuclear weapons arsenal, according to North Korea's official news agency KCNA.
The reclusive communist country said there is no point pursuing the talks since the US has taken an aggressive stance against it.
"We had already taken the resolute action of pulling out of the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) and have manufactured nukes for self-defence to cope with the Bush administration's evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK," said the North Korean Foreign Ministry in a statement.
It said Pyongyang has been patient for the past four years since US President George W Bush was first sworn in.
The United States, China, Japan, Russia and South and North Korea have participated in three rounds of six-party talks since 2003 in a bid to convince Pyongyang to halt its nuclear development, however they yielded little result.
A fourth round scheduled for September was cancelled when North Korea refused to attend.
"We have wanted the six-party talks but we are compelled to suspend our participation in the talks for an indefinite period till we have recognised that there is justification for us to attend the talks and there are ample conditions and atmosphere to expect positive results from the talks," said the statement.
It continued on to say that North Korea has built nuclear weapons "for self-defence" and would take measures to boost its arsenal to "protect its ideology, system, freedom and democracy".
It is Pyongyang's most clear-cut admission that it possesses weapons, although individual officials have privately admitted as much previously.
In Mr Bush's February 2 State of the Union address he only briefly mentioned North Korea, saying the US is working with Asian governments to convince Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear programme.
On Wednesday, he sent an envoy to China to seek its help in this mission.
SOURCE: World News
www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=104935®ion=2