North Korea warns Bush Adm. against hardline policy

A spokesman for North Korea`s Foreign Affairs Ministry warned that it would revoke the agreed suspension of missile test-firings and the 1994 Agreed Framework if U.S. President George W. Bush pursues a hardline policy on North Korea. Contending that the new U.S. administration is clamoring for a step-by-step policy of ``interference`` and conditional and rigid reciprocity, the spokesman cautioned that if these get-tough policies are formalized, Pyongyang would adopt certain countermeasures, North Korea`s Central News Agency said Thursday.

The North Korean ministry statement was the Pyongyang government`s first reaction to the Bush administration`s perceived policy direction on the communist state.

The spokesman said that under the Agreed Framework and the U.S.-North joint communique issued in Washington last year, the two countries committed to ending the era of confrontation and distrust, normalizing bilateral relations, build mutual confidence and addressing their concerns, adding that Washington`s insistence on conditional reciprocity among other things was tantamount to demanding that the North should act first, and that it would reciprocate later.

The North Korean news agency said, ``the U.S. has given us nothing free of charge, rather we have suffered losses. The U.S. is still inflicting damage on us while doing nothing beneficial.``

Referring to the delay in the construction of light-water reactors, the North Korean government`s media mouthpiece contended that the U.S. must realize that the North would not wait indefinitely, warning that ``we are ready to cope with any exigencies.``

Unification Ministry officials said that Pyongyang, in the face of reports of the Bush administration`s planned North Korea policy direction, which is thought to differ markedly from that of the Clinton administration, seems to have gone on the alert. At the same time, the officials said, the North may just be voicing concerns and anxiety over the delay in the formal announcement of the Bush administration`s approach to North Korean.

Kim Young-Sik spear@donga.com