North Korea says/does surprising and alarming thing - Page…

North Korea says it wont negotiate with US or South Korea unless it is recognised as a nuclear state.

he US has rejected North Korea's demands to be recognised as a nuclear state, keeping in line with Washington's condition that the North has to agree to give up its nuclear arms programme before talks can begin.

After weeks of tension on the Korean peninsula, including North Korean threats of nuclear war, the North has in recent days begun to at least talk about dialogue in response to calls for talks from the US and South Korea.

On Tuesday, the North's Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried commentary rejecting the US and South Korean condition that it agrees to dismantle its nuclear weapons and suspend missile launches as groundless and "totally unacceptable".

"If the Democratic People's Republic of Korea sits at a table with the US, it has to be a dialogue between nuclear weapons states, not one side forcing the other to dismantle nuclear weapons," the newspaper said.

US rejection

Later on Tuesday, US Assistant Secretary for International Security and Nonproliferation Thomas Countryman rejected the North's demands.

"North Korea's demand to be recognised as a nuclear weapons state is neither realistic nor acceptable," he said.

"It is important that the world respond calmly but deliberately without changing our emphasis that the goal of the world to which North Korea is committed is a denuclearised Korean peninsula."

A White House spokesman said earlier this month that North Korea would need to show it was serious about abandoning its nuclear ambitions for talks to be meaningful.

North Korea signed a denuclearisation-for-aid deal in 2005 but later backed out of that pact. It now says its nuclear arms
are a "treasured sword" that it will never give up.

It conducted its third nuclear test in February.

That triggered new UN sanctions which in turn led to a dramatic intensification of North Korea's threats of nuclear strikes against South Korea and the US.

As North Korea heads into the time of year when its food supplies run low, it appears to be looking for new donors.

At a courtesy call on the Mongolian president last week, Pyongyang’s new ambassador made a request for food aid, according to the official website for the head of state.

“North Korea may face (a) severe food shortage,” Ambassador Hong Gyu told President Elbegdorj, according to the account. Mr. Hong then asked for Mongolia to consider the possibility of delivering food aid to North Korea, the account said.

North Korea’s toughest part of the year for food begins in April and runs through September, when the annual corn harvest begins. Kwon Tae-jin, a scholar on North Korean agriculture in Seoul said that last year’s yield was moderate, but not sufficient to tide the country over.

“We’ve learned that while rations are being delivered, it varies region by region,” said Dr. Kwon, a director at the Korea Rural Economic Institute in Seoul. “But it isn’t sufficient to go around for everyone.”

There are other signs of food shortages. Daily NK, a news website staffed by North Korean defectors, reported last week that Pyongyang did not distribute food to the northernmost province for the biggest holiday of the year; the April 15 anniversary of the birthday of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

Since the severe famine in the 1990s, North Korea has struggled to feed its people.

Assistance from international organizations and South Korea has dropped in recent years but President Park Geun-hye has pledged to continue providing aid to the North despite a deterioration in relations with Pyongyang.

On April 26 2013 15:57 Garalor wrote:
(3rd LD) N. Korea snubs Seoul's call for talks on Kaesong

YONHAP

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is soul bluffing this time? what are the serious measures they want to do?

Seoul decided Friday to withdraw the roughly 175 South Koreans still at a jointly run factory complex in North Korea.

The statement Friday by the country's minister in charge of inter-Korean relations raised a major question about the future of the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

Seoul's announcement came hours after North Korea rejected a South Korean demand for talks on the factory park that has been closed for nearly a month. Seoul said it was worried about its workers not having access to food and medicine.

Pyongyang's powerful National Defense Commission earlier said Seoul's demand for working-level talks was deceptive and similar future demands would "only speed up final destruction" of South Korea.

North Korea said Saturday it will try a Korean-American detained in Pyongyang for unspecified "crimes" he has admitted to committing.

In a short dispatch, Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), monitored in Seoul, said Pae Jun-ho will soon be taken to the North's Supreme Court to face trial.

The report said the preliminary inquiry into Pae's crimes has been closed. It said Pae entered Rason City in the North on Nov. 3 of last year and was arrested "for committing crimes" against the communist country. The crimes were not specified.

"In the process of investigation he admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the DPRK with hostility toward it," the report said, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "His crimes were proved by evidence."

In South Korean media, the man has been identified as Kenneth Bae. Reports here said he entered North Korea with five other tourists.

Several U.S. citizens have been detained in recent years in North Korea, but all were released after negotiations.

The United States has no diplomatic ties with North Korea, and its interest in the isolated country has often been represented by the Swedish Embassy there.

Last year, Eddie Yong Su Jun, a Korean-American missionary, was released after facing indictment on charges of committing an unspecified crime against the North.

In 2010, North Korea set free Robert Park, a Korean-American Christian activist who entered the country on Christmas Day 2009 to draw international attention to the North's human rights abuse.

In 2009, former U.S. President Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang to win the release of two American journalists arrested during a reporting tour covering North Korean defectors.