Posted on 08/23/2004 8:11:00 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) described President Bush (news - web sites) Monday as a tyrannical political imbecile who put Adolf Hitler in the shade and said Pyongyang could see no justification for talks with his administration.
Six-party working-level talks on the communist North's nuclear weapons ambitions had been planned for August but have yet to materialize.
The September date for more senior talks is also in question, although diplomats note Pyongyang often raises its rhetorical voice before attending talks or compromising.
South Korea (news - web sites)'s foreign ministry said Monday its top nuclear negotiators would visit Beijing and Tokyo this week for consultations aimed at restarting the main talks.
In a strongly worded statement published by the official KCNA news agency, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said Bush had hurled "malignant slanders and calumnies" against Pyongyang's leadership under Kim Jong-il.
"This clearly proves that the DPRK was quite right when it commented that he is a political imbecile bereft of even elementary morality as a human being and a bad guy, much less being a politician," the spokesman said. "Bush is a tyrant that puts Hitler into the shade."
DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Bush said in a presidential election campaign speech last Wednesday in Hudson, Wisconsin, he had made the decision to bring in other countries to help persuade the North to disarm.
"NO" COULD STILL MEAN "YES"
"I felt it was important to bring other countries into the mix, like China and Japan and South Korea and Russia, so there's now five countries saying to the tyrant in North Korea, disarm, disarm," he said.
The North Korean spokesman said it had been impossible to hold working-level talks between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States because of what he called hostile U.S. policy.
He said the latest comments had made matters worse.
"This made it quite impossible for the DPRK to go to the talks and deprived it of any elementary justification to sit at the negotiating table with the U.S.," he said.
Some North Korea analysts say the bluster masks Pyongyang's true aim; to bide its time until it is clear whether Bush or Democrat challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) is elected in November's presidential election.
Seoul will try to seek out enough common ground in the negotiations to try to bring the countries back to the table this week through consultations with China -- the North's most trusted ally -- and Japan.
Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck will meet his new counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, in China on Tuesday and Japan's top negotiator, foreign ministry director general Mitoji Yabunaka, in Japan Thursday, a Seoul official said.
South Korea's financial markets were unaffected by the North's latest outburst, which followed a less firmly worded threat last week to stay away from further talks.
"The North Korea news failed to draw the attention of the stock market," said Oh Hyun-seok, an analyst at Samsung Securities, adding the main index turned lower because foreigners were selling shares after their portfolios were filled.
Another South Korean official told Reuters the North was not unequivocally ruling out talks and said there were still five weeks until the end of September, by which time full six-way talks are supposed to be held.
"North Korea has never categorically said it will not be attending the fourth round of six-party talks," the South Korean official said.
In a North Korean context, such words as "deprived" and "elementary justification" were quite different from saying Pyongyang would not attend the talks, the official said. (Additional reporting by Jack Kim and Pae Su-jung)
"North Korea Says Talks with U.S. Are Pointless"
Hey! They are right on that part! Maybe they are getting smarter?
If the NKs are hopping mad, I'd say the talks are proceeding quite nicely. ;-)
Hard to imagine what the Dear Leader has against Hitler.
Someone should tell that dog eating POS that his best chance to avoid nuclear annihilation is between now and Nov 2nd. After that, when President Bush is re-elected, he'd better be finding a really deep hole to hide in.
Absolutely right. How about this instead:
Headline:
Pyongyang falls to US forces
I have two words for North Korea: Ka Boom.
You know, I have never seen Terry McAwful and Kim in the same room . . . .
Yes, they truly are kindred spirits.
That's why Kerry sees diplomatic progress with North Korea if he is elected. They're already in agreement. They've been in substantial agreement since 1971.
It's about time they came around to our way of thinking....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.