"We will never condone the North's nuclear program,” Roh

PYONGYANG, May 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - North Korea Tuesday, May 13, declared a decade-old agreement with South Korea to keep the Korean peninsula nuclear weapons-free a "dead document" and blamed the United States for the demise of the accord.

In a statement denouncing Washington on the eve of a White House summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and South Korean counterpart Roh Moo-Hyun, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the 1992 North-South pact had been nullified.

The agreement was the last legal restraint on North Korean nuclear ambitions after the Stalinist regime pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and abandoned a 1994 arms control accord with the United States.

Last month China warned North Korea that pursuit of nuclear weapons would breach the joint North-South accord, while South Korea also reminded Pyongyang it was still bound by the agreement.

"The Bush administration systematically and completely torpedoed the process of denuclearization on the Korean peninsula," KCNA said. "The inter-Korean declaration on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was thus reduced to a dead document," reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A top South Korean official traveling with Roh said the Seoul government had received no official word from North Korea concerning the accord.

"We need a review of this problem in talks with the United States. However I think the North Korean authorities have not officially declared it nullified yet," Roh's foreign policy advisor Ban Ki-Moon told journalists.

Roh, visiting the United States on his first foreign trip since taking office in February, meets with Bush at the White House Wednesday.

The two leaders will discuss the seven-month-old nuclear crisis sparked by Pyongyang's reported admission in October that it was developing nuclear weapons through an enriched uranium program.

U.S. officials believe that North Korea has already diverted enough plutonium from a separate nuclear program frozen under the now-defunct 1994 accord for one or two atomic bombs.

Washington is insisting that Pyongyang scrap its nuclear programs as a first step before negotiations to resolve the crisis can progress. North Korean wants Washington to drop its "hostile" policy towards the Stalinist regime first.

In a separate dispatch, KCNA said it was this hostile U.S. policy that soured North Korea's efforts to improve ties with South Korea and Japan and compelled the Stalinist state to build its own "deterrent force."

The South Korean president is an advocate of engagement with the North but has been increasingly critical of the Pyongyang regime while Japan has frozen efforts begun last year to normalize ties with North Korea.

The United States said North Korea had admitted possessing nuclear weapons during exploratory talks in Beijing last month, and was reprocessing thousands of spent fuel rods that could provide plutonium for several more within months.

KCNA said the lesson North Korea had learned from the U.S.-led war in Iraq was to arm itself with a "deterrent force" capable of repelling any attack.

North Korea frequently accuses the United States of planning a preemptive strike. Pyongyang warned that it would meet force with force.

"The DPRK (North Korea) will increase its self-defensive capacity strong enough to destroy aggressors at a single stroke," KCNA said.

"Any U.S. aerial attack will be decisively countered with aerial attack and its land strategy will be coped with land strategy."   

Roh Warns NKorea

South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun gave a stern warning Monday to North Korea that developing nuclear weapons would lead down a "blind alley" ahead of the key talks with US President George W. Bush.

Roh started a landmark US visit aimed at repairing damage done by anti-US sentiment in South Korea, simmering trade friction and differences over how to counter the North's nuclear weapons drive.

"North Korea has two alternatives: It can go down a blind alley or it can open up," Roh said in a speech to the Korea Society in New York.

Rho, who will meet Bush in Washington on Wednesday for a summit dominated by North Korea's nuclear weapons, said the Stalinist North had to renounce its nuclear ambitions.

"Pyongyang must give up its nuclear project and come forward as a responsible member of the international community. When the North takes this route, the Republic of Korea and the international community will extend the necessary support and cooperation," Roh said.

"Pyongyang's nuclear program poses a serious threat to the peace and stability of Northeast Asia as well as the Korean Peninsula," said Roh who has previously steered clear of direct criticism of North Korea.

Differences over how to handle North Korea is a key reason for Roh's U.S. visit, challenging the Seoul-Washington alliance dating back to the Korean War 50 years ago.

He added, "We will never condone the North's nuclear program. But this issue should be settled peacefully by all means, and I am sure it will be solved through dialogue."

Seoul and Washington "both recognize this principle and are coping with the issue accordingly," he said.