DPRK blames US "double standards" on blocked nuclear talks

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said on Saturday that the US "hostile policy" based on double standards toward the DPRK is an impediment to the talks on nuclear issues of the Korean Peninsula.

"Now that the US deliberate provocation has already overturned the groundwork of dialogue, the resumption of the talks can no longer be discussed unless the US drops its hostile policy toward the DPRK," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a statement.

Pyongyang announced on Thursday that it will never go back to the fourth round of the six-party talks, scheduled before the end of this month, unless the recently reported South Korea's secret nuclear experiments are probed.

The KCNA statement also accused the United States of helping South Korea in its nuclear experiments.

"It is quite impossible for South Korea to make such nuclear-related experiments for years without the US knowledge," said the statement.

"It proves that the US double standards are a fundamental factor of the nuclear proliferation," it said.

Earlier this month, South Korea admitted two groups of scientists respectively conducted experiment of extracting small amount of plutonium in 1982 and separated 0.2 gram of uranium in 2000, both failing to inform local nuclear authorities.

"What infuriates the DPRK is that the United States has so far shut its eyes to the secret nuclear activities of its allies under its nuclear umbrella but has pressured the DPRK to accept the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement (CVID)," said the statement.

"It is necessary for the United States to come out to dialogue with willingness to drop its double standards and renounce its hostile policy toward the DPRK in practice," the KCNA urged.

The six-party talks involve the DPRK, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States.

Source: Xinhua