North Korea yesterday rejected calls by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to dismantle its nuclear program, accusing the UN nuclear watchdog of acting as a "waiting maid" for the US.
At a general conference in Vienna of its 137 members on Friday, the IAEA passed a resolution urging North Korea "to promptly accept comprehensive IAEA safeguards and co-operate with the agency in their full and effective implementation."
It urged the communist state to dismantle "any nuclear weapons program" it might have.
But North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency dismissed the resolution as not deserving "even a passing note."
"The DPRK [North Korea] can never recognize but declares invalid such [an] unreasonable resolution," it said.
It stressed that North Korea had no obligations to heed such calls as it has pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, asserting that the "nuclear issue" has arisen from the US' hostile policy toward it.
"It is quite unacceptable to anyone that the IAEA meeting discussed the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula and adopted a resolution attacking the DPRK though it is not a signatory to the [treaty]," it said.
"In fact the DPRK has nothing to do with the IAEA and therefore, the resolution is being denounced and ridiculed by everyone as its adoption is a senseless act reminding one of a dog barking against the moon," the statement said.
"What should not be overlooked is that the IAEA is still acting a henchman and spokesman for the US to serve the purpose of its hostile policy toward the DPRK to disarm it and destroy its system," it said.
"This time, too, the IAEA said nothing of the US which has grossly violated the [treaty] and the DPRK-US Agreed Framework but pressurized the DPRK, a victim, to give up its right to self-defense, thus fully disclosing its true colors as a political waiting maid of the US," the North's official mouthpiece said.
The nuclear dispute flared in October last year when US officials said North Korea had admitted to operating a clandestine nuclear weapons program in violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework.
Under that accord North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear facilities in return for the construction of two light-water reactors and the supply of heavy fuel oil.
North Korea has since kicked out IAEA inspectors and withdrawn from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in January after the US suspended fuel shipments to the energy-starved country.
It accused the US of failing to carry out its own end of the agreement by maintaining its hostile policy toward the communist state and failing to complete construction of the new reactors.
Senior officials from the US, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas met in Beijing from Aug. 27 to Aug. 29 to explore ways of settling a prolonged crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
But the talks ended without a tangible agreement. The delegates agreed to meet again at an as-yet undetermined time.
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