Pyongyang sets tough terms for talks

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea has said it would only respond to U.S. calls for talks if President George W. Bush recognized its political system and adopted policies of the previous Clinton administration.

"The DPRK's stand on dialogue is to get its political system recognized by the U.S., not to allow itself to be disarmed or abandon its system," state-run news agency KCNA said.

North Korea was apparently responding to a comment by President Bush last month criticizing its political system. DPRK is the acronym of North Korea's official name, the

Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

During a visit to South Korea last month, President Bush offered to resume talks with North Korea, but at the same time branded the North's political system a "despotic regime" that "builds weapons of mass destruction while starving its people".

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An irate North Korea dismissed U.S. calls for talks as "camouflaged big stick logic and Trojan horse tactics," and accused the Bush administration of sabotaging dialogue prospects by plotting to dismantle the North's communist system.

"North Korea made it clear ... that it can never respond to any 'dialogue' called for by the Bush administration seeking a pretext for invasion, while refusing to recognize the North's system," KCNA said.

KCNA said Bush's remarks "caused the DPRK to lose any confidence in the U.S. and any justification to negotiate with the Bush administration."

Follow Clinton

The KCNA statement also reiterated a demand that Bush adopt a soft stance toward Pyongyang, similar to that of former President Bill Clinton.

"The DPRK's position is to resume the dialogue for the improved bilateral relations on the basis of the Bush administration's respect for the agreement reached between the DPRK and the preceding U.S. administration," it said.

U.S.-North Korea relations warmed considerably in the final months of the Clinton administration.

In late 2000, the Clinton administration even came close to reaching a deal to stop a North Korean ballistic missile program seen as threatening Japan and parts of the United States.

But upon his resumption into office last year, Bush suspended talks with North Korea and called for a policy review.

He criticized the Clinton approach to North Korea for delaying security problems without resolving them and said they rewarded dangerous North Korean behavior.

The U.S. leader also sought to add conventional weapons and troops deployed near the North's border with South Korea last year, which both alarmed and angered North Korea.

Divided in 1945, the Koreas share the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, the most heavily armed border in the world. About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea.