Better talk: N Korea warns a sceptical US

‘‘If the US persists in its moves to pressurise and stifle the DPRK (North Korea) by force, the latter will have no option but to take a tougher counter-action,’’ the ruling party daily Rodong Sinmun said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

On Monday, North Korean leader, Kim Yong-Nam, told South Korea’s visiting unification minister that the Communist state was ready for a dialogue.

The US Ambassador in Seoul, speaking on Tuesday, said that Washington sought to pre-empt a crisis through diplomacy, but that North Korea had exhausted its credibility with the secret nuclear programme that broke a previous negotiated settlement.

‘‘We have very little basis for trust in North Korea, very little basis for confidence that further dialogue will lead to a solution,’’ said envoy Thomas Hubbard.

The bombshell admission, disclosed by the US last week, puts North Korea in violation of at least four international commitments, including a 1994 ‘‘Agreed Framework’’ with the US which averted an earlier nuclear crisis.

Hubbard said Pyongyang was mistaken if it thought the new arms scheme would win it concessions. ‘‘They are wrong if they think that development of nuclear weapons is the way to build a better life for their people or build a better place for North Korea in the world community’’.

He said Washington sought a peaceful resolution of the problem and that there was no ‘‘cookie cutter approach’’ to Iraq, North Korea and Iran. (Reuters)