SEOUL: North Korean media Saturday threatened a “1,000-fold” military buildup as the United States ruled out lifting sanctions to try to coax the North into resuming talks aimed at its nuclear weapons programs. Last year, North Korea quit the nuclear disarmament talks and later tested an atomic device that drew tightened UN sanctions. But North Korea said Saturday it is willing to rejoin the negotiations and remains committed to implementing a September 2005 accord on abandoning its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees. Instead, it accused the United States and other participants of holding back the six-nation talks. North Korea “is ready for the resumption of the ... talks but decided not to go hasty but to make ceaseless patient efforts now that the US and some other participating countries are not ready for them,” the country's Foreign Ministry said late Saturday in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. The talks involve the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia. The statement came after North Korea's first Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan returned home from a five-day trip to China, the North's key ally. Kim said after meeting with Chinese nuclear envoy Wu Dawei Friday that his country would not return to the disarmament talks unless sanctions are lifted, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley responded Friday that the sanctions exist because North Korea consistently has failed to live up to its international obligations. “We have no intention of removing those sanctions as an enticement for dialogue,” he told reporters. Saturday's Minju Joson newspaper, part of North Korea's statetrolled media, said in a commentary that the country's war deterrent force will be strengthened “100- or 1,000-fold” as long as US military threats persist, according to KCNA. – Agence France
