"We are studying that plan, we are examining it with our friends and allies," Powell

Pyongyang, April 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - North Korea said Tuesday, April 29, that nuclear talks with the United States are pointless as long as Washington continues to insist on "wrong stand" on key issues.

"As the U.S. administration maintains such a stand, the two sides would only waste time, no matter how frequently they negotiate," a North Korean official newspaper, Minju Joson, said.

In a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, the newspaper predicted the crisis would only worsen as long as Washington "pursues its hostile policy" toward North Korea, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The newspaper referred to a "new bold proposal" presented by North Korea at talks last week in Beijing, the first between the North and the United States since the nuclear crisis erupted six months ago.

North Korea offered at the talks to scrap its nuclear weapons and missile programs in return for political, economic and diplomatic concessions.

It complained the U.S. side responded to the offer by repeating its demand for an end to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons drive.

The comment came a day after U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington was reviewing Pyongyang's offer.

"We are studying that plan, we are examining it with our friends and allies," Powell said, adding that talks were now underway with the South Korean, Japanese, Russian, Australian and other governments.

After the Beijing meeting, the U.S. said Pyongyang had admitted to having nuclear weapons, as well as having started reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods - a key step in producing further weapons and has threatened to prove it with a "display".

But North Korea has yet to state this assertion publicly, according to the BBC News Online.

China also said Tuesday that according to its information North Korea has never admitted to having nuclear weapons, contrary to U.S. claims.

"According to my knowledge the DPRK (North Korea) has not made such a statement," said foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.

"List Of Things"

"We've made clear we're not going to pay for elimination of the nuclear weapons programs,” Boucher

Powell did not indicate whether Washington would accept the offer, and did not say what concessions Pyongyang was demanding.

However other U.S. officials said the North Koreans had presented a lengthy list of demands.
The demands include full normalization of ties with the United States, security guarantees and economic assistance that include oil and other energy considerations.

"They had quite a list of things," U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

A senior State Department official said later that the list of demands was so extensive that it defied a "concise description."

"It basically listed everything they have ever asked for," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity, identifying oil and energy supplies as demands.

Although the North Korean demands are being looked at, Boucher repeated long-standing U.S. policy that Washington would not be blackmailed or otherwise threatened into buying Pyongyang off.

"We've made clear we're not going to pay for elimination of the nuclear weapons programs that never should have begun in the first place," he said.

Powell acknowledged that North Korea had hinted it could prove it possessed nuclear weapons with some sort of display during the Beijing talks, but maintained that the North Koreans had not used the words "test" or "testing."

"They said that it is the kind of capability that one can display in one way or another," he said.

Envoy For Washington

In another related development, South Korea said it sent national security advisor Ra Jong-Yil to Washington Tuesday for talks on Pyongyang's offer.

He is scheduled to meet with top officials including Powell, his US counterpart Condoleezza Rice, and other officials..  

Seoul views North Korea's offer as "positive," according to one official, because Pyongyang has finally "come clean" on what it wants.

During his four-day stay in Washington, South Korean national security advisor Ra will meet with Powell,

"Through his visit, Ra will discuss such bilateral issues as peaceful resolution of the North's nuclear arms program and strengthening of the South Korea-US alliance," presidential spokeswoman Song Kyoung-Hee said.

South Korean newspapers reported Monday that North Korea suggested that Pyongyang and Washington act simultaneously and equally to resolve the six-month-old nuclear crisis.

Boucher ruled out simultaneous steps by both sides, stressing Washington would not consider such moves until the "verifiable and irreversible termination" of the north's nuclear programs.

"We (have) made clear that once North Korea did that, we could move on or move back to the comprehensive approach to U.S.-North Korea relations that we had talked about before," he said.