North Korea Denies Aid Ploy

North Korea denied on Tuesday that its withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was aimed at squeezing concessions from the United States, and accused Washington of being insincere about prospects for dialogue.

Pyongyang kept up its confrontational stance even as a U.S. envoy in Seoul offered the possibility of energy assistance if North Korea gives up its nuclear programs, and called for a peaceful resolution of the standoff.

The communist country's state-run news agency, KCNA, said that as a sovereign country, North Korea has the right to opt out of international agreements.

"Some countries and media describe our recent measures as brinkmanship tactics and that is a silly allegation," KCNA said in a commentary that was reported by the South Korean news agency, Yonhap.

Pyongyang withdrew from the nuclear pact last week and has threatened to drop a self-imposed moratorium on missile tests, and to operate a plant that can be used to extract weapons-grade plutonium from spent fuel rods.

North Korea has protested the suspension of U.S. fuel shipments to the impoverished country following its admission last fall of a secret nuclear weapons program. The North says it will resolve U.S. security concerns if Washington signs a non-aggression pact.
To many, the steps are a ploy by a desperately poor and isolated nation to trade its nuclear programs for much-need assistance and diplomatic ties. On Monday, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer accused North Korea of attempting blackmail.

But the KCNA report on Tuesday said North Korea's recent moves were prompted by Washington's aggressive attitude. While denying that Pyongyang posed a threat to the world, the report said the country was ready to fight any military moves against it.

The denial of brinkmanship came a day after U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly suggested the possibility of American energy aid to North Korea once the nuclear issue is resolved.

After Kelly's meetings with the South Koreans, the two sides also agreed to seek cooperation from Russia, China and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency for an "early and peaceful" resolution to the standoff, the release said.

Pyongyang appeared to dismiss such efforts, though some analysts regard its harsh rhetoric as an attempt to push Washington into talks.

"The Bush warlike group has finally decided to provoke a war of aggression against North Korea, though it talks about 'dialogue' and 'security assurance,'" the state-run Rodong newspaper said in a commentary carried Tuesday on KCNA.

North Korea's argument, whether genuine or an act of gamesmanship, is that they have reason to feel threatened by the United States.

U.S.-North Korean relations warmed slightly toward the end of the Clinton administration, with President Clinton even considering a visit to Pyongyang at one point. But because of its suspicions of the "sunshine" policy that led to South Korean talks with the North, the Bush administration suspended contacts with Pyongyang when it took office.

The stance eased slightly several months into the Bush presidency. But then the president labeled North Korea a member of the "axis of evil" along with Iraq, a nation that was almost immediately the target of plans for possible war.

In an interview last week with The Washington Post, Secretary of State Colin Powell reiterated that the United States "had no aggressive intent." But he said the North Koreans apparently want formal assurances the United States won't attack.

The international effort to defuse the confrontation and dissuade Pyongyang from building nuclear weapons widened on Tuesday.

Russia said that Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov will travel to China, North Korea and the United States as part of the international efforts to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

Murray McLean, Australia's Foreign Affairs Department's first assistant secretary for North Asia, said in Beijing en route to Pyongyang that he would express "our strong views" against nuclear proliferation.

Maurice Strong, a special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said he would try to assess North Korea's needs for foreign food aid.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Program, estimates that some 13.2 of North Korea's 23.2 million people are malnourished. According to a State Department report issued in May 2002, the United States has donated more than $500 million in aid to North Korea since 1995.

The aid has average 350,00 metric tons a year, although that dropped in 2002 to 155,000 metric tons because of aid needs in Afghanistan.