Pyongyang rejects US proposal

North Korea yesterday rejected a US-backed proposal on ending a crisis over its nuclear weapons program, and warned that Washington's "delaying tactics" would only prompt the communist government to step up its nuclear development.

The North's main state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun said the country was rejecting the US offer because it did not accept North Korea's demand for "a package solution based on the principle of simultaneous actions."

North Korea wants a deal that would trade its nuclear weapons program for security assurances and economic aid from the US. Washington wants North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons first.

"If the US fully accepts the DPRK-proposed simultaneous package solution, though belatedly, the DPRK is ready to respond to it with the elimination of all its nuclear weapons," Rodong said, using the acronym of the North's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"But the US in its proposal sent through a channel did not mention the DPRK-proposed simultaneous package solution at all but only asserted that the DPRK should `scrap nuclear weapons program first,'" Rodong said.

The US and its allies sent a blueprint for resolving the nuclear dispute to Pyongyang last week. Officials did not divulge details of the plan, but news reports said it broadly seeks the verifiable and irrevocable dismantling of the North's atomic weapons program along with security assurances for Pyongyang.

North Korea said last week it and the US were "leveling guns at each other" and demanded that the opposing sides take "simultaneous actions" toward ending the crisis.

As the first set of such actions, North Korea last week suggested that it would join six-nation talks and freeze its nuclear weapons activities only if the US agreed to remove the North from its list of terrorism-sponsoring countries and provide fuel and economic aid. US President George W. Bush rejected the idea.

"As the US urges the DPRK to dismantle its nuclear weapons completely, verifiably and irreversibly, the latter has the same right to demand the US, the dialogue partner, give it complete, verifiable and irreversible security assurances," Rodong said.

"Its delaying tactics would only result in compelling the DPRK to steadily increase its nuclear deterrent force," it said. North Korea refers to its nuclear program as a "deterrent force" against a US plan to invade.

The US and its allies in the region want to persuade North Korea to end its nuclear programs through discussions between the two Koreas, the US, Russia, Japan and China. The first round of six-nation talks, held in Beijing in August, ended without much progress.

Officials hoped to hold talks by the year's end, but backed off that goal and now hope for a second round in mid-January.

Chinese Minister Li Zhaoxing, speaking by phone Sunday night with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, "expressed hope for the US side to take a more flexible and practical attitude in preparation for the next round of six-party talks," the official Xinhua News Agency said yesterday.

Powell the South Korean foreign minister Yoon Young-kwan yesterday and pledged US efforts to bring about a new multilateral meeting as soon as possible, Yoon's office said.

Also yesterday, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said his government was committed to resolving the crisis "peacefully through dialogue."

"Active contacts are taking place among the countries of the six-nation meeting to seek a way to hold a next round of talks and a better way to resolve the problem," Roh said, speaking to a regional forum in Seoul.

The proposal sent to Pyongyang last week was a US-backed draft of a document envisioned as being adopted by the six nations. Faced with North Korea's criticism, the six nations were still fine-tuning the draft.

In the fall of last year, US officials said North Korea admitted running a new nuclear weapons program using enriched uranium in violation of international agreements.