A defiant North Korea yesterday accused the US of plotting nuclear war as diplomatic initiatives gathered pace to defuse the crisis over Pyongyang's suspected atomic weapons program.
South Korea was due later to present US and Japanese officials with its plan to reduce tensions, while the UN nuclear watchdog also looked set to give the North another chance to change its mind.
But reclusive North Korea remained defiant, denouncing Washington's missile-defense system and threatening the US with destruction if it launched a nuclear attack over Pyongyang's suspected atomic weapons program.
North Korea said it had "increased its self-defensive military capability" to cope with the "US intensified policy to invade and stifle it with nukes."
"If the US unleashes a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula, it will not escape its destruction," Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
In Washington, South Korean officials were to present Seoul's plan to US and Japanese delegates at a regular meeting of the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group.
"Our mediation plans will be discussed at the talks with the United States and Japan in Washington," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kim Euy-taek said.
A Seoul official familiar with the plan said it calls for a US guarantee of North Korea's security and a resumption of energy aid suspended last month in return for Pyongyang scrapping its weapons program.
Tension has risen since late last month when North Korea ejected IAEA inspectors and fired up a nuclear reactor mothballed under a 1994 deal in which it agreed to end such work in exchange for fuel-oil supplies from the US and allies.
Washington halted the oil shipments from last month after saying Pyongyang had admitted to a covert nuclear program.
So Jae-young, an economic specialist at Daehan Investment and Trust, said Seoul appeared to be playing its cards just right.
"The possibility of success of the [South] Korean government's diplomatic tactics is looking positive and the direction of its efforts seems just right," he said.
"Directly dealing with either North Korea or the United States wouldn't be reasonable, but cooperating with a third country, such as Japan, China or Russia, would benefit us."
North Korea, which says it started up the reactor as an act of self-defense, slammed Washington's national missile-defense system yesterday, saying it was part of a "cunning trick" to justify a US attack.
US President George W. Bush said the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technology had increased the need for such a defense against attack by "rogue states" such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea, his so-called "axis of evil."
The US-North Korean war of words has prompted South Korean President Kim Dae-jung to send a top security aide to Washington.
"I will frankly convey to the US side President Kim's point of view and especially his ideas for resolving the North Korean nuclear problem," Yim Sung-joon told reporters after a meeting with Kim yesterday, the outgoing president's 78th birthday.
"I will meet with senior US officials, compare and analyze our positions on the North Korean nuclear issue and search for a common denominator," Yim said.
Yim flies to Washington today and on to Tokyo on Friday.
South Korea has proposed to North Korea that they hold ministerial talks in Seoul next week, their ninth Cabinet-level meeting since 2000, a Seoul Unification Ministry official said.
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