US downplays N. Korea announcement
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The Bush administration responded calmly yesterday to North Korean statements it has turned the plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into nuclear weapons.
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The US says it is not ready to engage broadly with North Korea despite warmer relations recently.
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The United States has assumed since  the mid-1990s that North Korean is able to make nuclear  weapons, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday,  playing down a dramatic announcement from Pyongyang.
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The United States was not making "a lethal threat" when an envoy warned North Korea that it could not have both a future and a nuclear weapon, the White House said on Thursday.
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TOKYO, Oct. 23--Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Saturday the United States will not provide &quot;up front&quot; benefits to North Korea if it agrees to dismantle its nuclear programs, rejecting
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The Bush administration is backing away from its long-held assertions that North Korea has an active clandestine program to enrich uranium, leading some experts to believe that the original U.S. intelligence that started the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions may have been flawed.
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The White House said on Wednesday it  was &quot;deeply troubled&quot; by North Korea&#39;s recent test-firings of  short-range missiles, but Pentagon officials downplayed them as  &quot;routine&quot; and not provocative.
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Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday rejected demands by North Korea of a US &quot;reward&quot; before the communist country would agree to resume multinational talks about its nuclear weapons programs.
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South Korea&#39;s top nuclear negotiator says he does not see the standoff over North Korea&#39;s nuclear program being resolved before the US presidential election in November.
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US officials are cautious at reports that North Korea is ready to rejoin talks on its nuclear weapons programme.
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SEOUL : North Korea says it will not return to international talks on its nuclear weapons programme until the lineup of a new US administration emerges and Washington drops its &quot;hostile policy&quot; toward the communist state.
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WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is willing to hold limited face-to-face talks with North Korea and will continue to help feed the country, but will not sweeten a proposed trade of economic concessions for a halt in development of nuclear weapons, the US ambassador to South Korea said yesterday.
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North Korea blamed the United States on Monday for blocking six-country talks on scrapping its nuclear programs, denying it had stalled the talks itself to await the outcome of the US presidential election.
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The United States said that its warnings to North Korea against conducting a nuclear weapons test were &quot;not a lethal threat&quot; and denied seeking the collapse of the regime in Pyongyang.
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SEOUL - US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday on US television that the United States does not believe that North Korea conducted a nuclear test this past week, French state radio reported.
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The United States on Monday dismissed as inappropriate North Korea&#39;s unusually strong personal attacks on President George W. Bush, but remained confident Pyongyang would attend talks to resolve the nuclear crisis in the Korean peninsula.
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North Korea should avoid setting conditions for joining talks on its nuclear program and raise such issues within the six-nation forum, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said.