NKorea lashes out anew over protest in Seoul

North Korea said it was open to talks, but not as long as the United States is "brandishing a nuclear stick," while Washington insisted that the burden for renewed negotiations now rests with Pyongyang.

North Korea also warned that it will intensify unspecified "military countermeasures" unless the US stops conducting military drills on the peninsula and withdraws the military assets that Pyongyang says threaten the North with a nuclear attack.

The statements yesterday came amid international fears that the North is preparing to conduct a medium-range missile test and also as North Korea marked the second day of festivities in honour of the April 15 birthday of its first leader, Kim Il Sung.

The renewed vitriol began after a Monday protest by about 250 people in downtown Seoul, where effigies of Kim Il Sung and his late son and successor, Kim Jong Il, were burned. Such protests are fairly common in South Korea, and though
Monday's was held on the holiday that North Korea calls "The Day of the Sun," some analysts suggested North Korea was using it as a pretext to reject calls for a dialogue with the South, at least for the time being.

North Korea often denounces protests like the one held Monday, but this time responded with a statement from the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army, which is headed by Kim Il Sung's grandson and North Korea's overall leader, Kim Jong Un.

The North's statement said it would refuse any offers of talks with the South until it apologised for the "monstrous criminal act."If the puppet authorities truly want dialogue and negotiations, they should apologise for all anti-DPRK hostile acts, big and small, and show the compatriots their will to stop all these acts in practice," the statement said. North Korea's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK.

Later in the day, its state media quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman saying North Korea has no intention of holding talks with the US unless it also abandons its hostility against the North.

North Korea is not opposed to dialogue but has no intention of "sitting at the humiliating negotiating table with the party brandishing a nuclear stick," the statement said.

But in Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell later told reporters that North Korea needs to make the first move."They know what they need to do in terms of stopping their provocations and showing a seriousness of purpose, and so they know what's required of them," he said.