Seoul: North Korea renewed its demand on Tuesday for recognition as a nuclear power, saying it was a pre-requisite for the start of any dialogue with the United States.
A commentary in the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper rejected as “totally unacceptable” a US demand that North Korea commit to abandoning its nuclear weapons and missile programme before any talks can begin.
Any meeting at the negotiating table must be “between nuclear weapons states”, it said.
The United States has made it clear that it will never formally accept the North, which carried out its third nuclear test in February, as a nuclear power.
After a month of escalating military tensions on the Korean peninsula, Seoul, Washington and Pyongyang have begun skirting around the possibility of dialogue.
Rejecting pre-conditions
For the moment, however, most energy is being expended on rejecting each other’s pre-conditions.
During a trip to Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo earlier this month, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Pyongyang must first prove it was serious about reining in its nuclear programme.
North Korea responded by demanding the withdrawal of UN sanctions and an end to all future South Korea-US joint military exercises.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s defence minister on Tuesday received a package containing a threatening letter and some suspicious powder which was later found to be flour, his spokesman said.
The parcel was delivered days after hundreds of threatening leaflets were found scattered outside Defence Minister Kim Kwan-jin’s office.
Vitriolic attacks
The leaflets condemned Kim for his perceived hardline stance against North Korea, which has made the minister a focus of Pyongyang’s more vitriolic propaganda attacks on the South.
“The parcel contained flour, and we are now investigating who might have sent it,” a defence ministry spokesman told AFP, adding that Kim’s security detail had been strengthened in the meantime.
The Korean peninsula has been in a state of heightened military tension since the North carried out its third nuclear test in February.
Incensed by fresh UN sanctions and joint South Korea-US military exercises, Pyongyang has spent weeks issuing blistering threats of missile strikes and nuclear war.
Pictures recently released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency showed military attack dogs tearing at a mannequin masked with a photograph of the minister’s face.
