N. Korea Rebuffs U.S. Plan

North Korea on Monday rejected a U.S.-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.

In Washington, however, President Bush said he was "pleased with the progress we're making" on ending the nuclear crisis and reiterated his administration's policy that it favors diplomacy, rather than force, to end the standoff.

"One of the things I think you've seen about our foreign policy is that I'm reluctant to use military power. It's the last choice; it's not our first choice," he told a news conference in which he highlighted the successes of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The North's main state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun said the country was rejecting the U.S. 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 United States. Washington wants North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons first.

"If the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 United States 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 United States 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 United States agreed to remove the North from its list of terrorism-sponsoring countries and provide fuel and economic aid. Mr. Bush rejected the idea.

"As the U.S. urges the DPRK to dismantle its nuclear weapons completely, verifiably and irreversibly, the latter has the same right to demand the U.S., 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 U.S. plan to invade.

Pyongyang claims to feel threatened by the United States because the Bush administration has articulated a doctrine of preemptive war, and listed North Korea in an "axis of evil" of which Iraq was also a member.

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

Officials had 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 Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, speaking by phone Sunday night with Secretary of State Colin Powell, "expressed hope for the U.S. 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 Monday.

Powell, who was undergoing prostate surgery later in the day, called the South Korean foreign minister Yoon Young-kwan on Monday and pledged U.S. efforts to bring about a new multilateral meeting as soon as possible, Yoon's office said.

Also Monday, 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 U.S.-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 2002, U.S. officials said North Korea admitted running a new nuclear weapons program using enriched uranium in violation of international agreements.

Since then, North Korea has said it restarted its frozen nuclear facilities, kicked out U.N. nuclear inspectors and quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

North Korea is one of seven nations the United States lists as state sponsors of terrorism. In its annual report on terrorism, the State Department acknowledges North Korea has not sponsored a terrorist act since 1987, but sells weapons to terror groups and has failed to take steps to combat terrorism.