- SEOUL (Reuters) - Shrugging
off widespread international condemnation of its pursuit of nuclear weapons,
North Korea declared on Saturday it was ready to deal "bitter defeat
and death" to a threatening United States.
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- North Korea raised the stakes on Thursday in a nuclear
row with the United States and its allies when it said it would restart
a nuclear reactor idled under a 1994 agreement that averted a nuclear crisis
on the peninsula.
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- The North's declaration fueled concern over a secret
uranium enrichment program which Washington said in October Pyongyang had
admitted to operating in violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework.
-
- "The DPRK remains unfazed as it has made full preparations
to cope with the confrontation and clash with the Yankees," a commentary
in the ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said.
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- "The army and people of the DPRK with burning hatred
for the Yankees are in full readiness to fight a death-defying battle,"
said the commentary, carried by the North's official Korean Central News
Agency (KCNA).
-
- DPRK is the acronym for the communist North's official
title, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. With more than one in
20 of its 23 million people in military uniform, North Korea is the most
heavily militarized country on earth.
-
- President Bush and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung
put new pressure on North Korea over its nuclear ambitions, with Kim telling
Bush by telephone a revived atomic program was "unacceptable"
and agreeing there could be no business as usual with the communist state.
-
- "President Kim noted that North Korea's statement
on unfreezing its nuclear program is unacceptable. And then the two leaders
agreed to continue seeking a peaceful resolution while not allowing business
as usual to continue with North Korea," White House spokesman Ari
Fleischer said.
-
- The United States, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia
and the European Union have all called on North Korea to give up its nuclear
program, so far to little avail.
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- The Rodong Sinmun said Pyongyang had shown "maximum
patience and self-restraint" in the face of U.S. pressure and threats,
epitomized by Bush's description of North Korea as part of an "axis
of evil" with Iran and Iraq.
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- "The U.S. should be mindful that this is not an
expression of the feeble-mindedness and weakness of the DPRK at all,"
it said.
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