PYONGYANG, March 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - While accusing Washington of “state terrorism policy” in invading Iraq, North Korea Saturday, March 29, declared it would make no concessions to end the ongoing nuclear crisis and pledged instead to build up its defense and fend off the kind of "miserable fate" that has befallen Iraq.

The official daily of the ruling Korean Workers Party, Rodong Sinmun, said that while it was too early to make a judgment on the Iraq invasion, "it is clear that the destiny of Iraq is at stake due to its concession and compromise," reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In a strongly worded commentary, it sought to draw lessons from the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"The DPRK (North Korea) would have already met the same miserable fate as Iraq's, had it compromised its revolutionary principle and accepted the demand raised by the imperialists and its followers for 'nuclear inspection' and disarmament," the daily said editorially.

It said the Workers Party's "army-based policy" and defensive capacity were the "No. 1 lifeline" of the communist state and provided a sure guarantee not only for protecting its sovereignty but ensuring peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.

"The DPRK will increase its self-defensive capability and fully demonstrate its might under the uplifted banner of the army-based policy," it said.

"No one should expect the DPRK to make any slightest concession or compromise. Those who stage saber-rattling against it had better stop it."

Pyongyang made the statement hours after South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-Kwan met with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington to discuss the nuclear stand-off.

Following the talks, Yoon told journalists that the U.S. side had reaffirmed that it will seek a peaceful solution to the crisis through diplomatic means.

"North Korea and Iraq are two different issues and require different approaches," Yoon said.

The focal point now is how to prevent further escalations of the crisis before the issue could be handled within the framework of multilateral talks, he said.

The United States Friday rejected a call by the new South Korean government for a "bold" initiative to engage North Korea, on a par with former president Richard Nixon's epochal 1970s overtures to communist China.

Yoon offered the suggestion before his talks with Powell on the simmering crisis touched off by the Stalinist state's drive for nuclear weapons.

But Powell said the Bush administration had already shelved what it described as a "bold" approach of measures to engage North Korea, until Pyongyang agrees to stand down its drive for nuclear weapons.

Yoon said he detected signs of future flexibility in the US approach to North Korea after a speech to a Washington think-tank but said what was needed was a diplomatic coup comparable to the US opening of Mao Zedong's China.

"In the early 1970s, the Nixon government took a bold diplomatic initiative with China," Yoon said in a speech hosted by the School of Advanced International Studies.

"The same approach could be applied to North Korea."

“State Terrorism”

Meanwhile, Communist North Korea said Saturday the United States was carrying out a policy of "brigands state terrorism" in its war on Iraq, state media reported.

A foreign ministry statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency said the U.S. had no right to engage in hostilities to overthrow the regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein or any other country.

"No one has granted the U.S. the right to change the regime of another country and there is no sovereign state in the world which will allow such brigands state terrorism on the part of the U.S.," the statement said.

North Korea, engaged in a near six-month standoff with the US over its revived nuclear weapons program, has condemned the invasion as illegal and says it believes Washington will turn its guns on the Stalinist state once the Gulf campaign is concluded.

North Korea was grouped by President George W. Bush along with Iraq and Iran in an "axis of evil" and is on the U.S. State Department's list of countries considered state sponsors of “terrorism”.

"The U.S. is openly asserting that the basic aim of its Iraqi war is to overthrow the Iraqi leadership," the statement said.

"It began its military attack on Iraq with a surprise strike to kill the Iraqi president and is now leaving no stone unturned to put it into practice," it said.

"The arrogant and outrageous behavior of the US that adopted it as its national policy to kill the state leader of another country is typical state terrorism that can never be tolerated."