The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Monday defied the US threat to take the nuclear issue to the United Nations, demanding justification for its return to the six-party talks.

"What matters is that there are still no conditions and justification for the DPRK to participate in the six-party talks," said a spokesman of the DPRK's Foreign Ministry, clearly in response to recent remarks by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"If the US is really interested in the resumption of the talks, it should provide the DPRK with conditions and justification to return to the talks," the spokesman said.

"Nevertheless, the US is not interested at all in providing the DPRK with such justification to participate in the talks, but intends to bring the issue to the UNSC in a bid to resolve it through sanctions if the latter disobeys," the spokesman said.

Rice told the US FOX TV last Thursday that the United States would go to the UN Security Council and would not wait with folded arms for the DPRK to return to the six-party talks.

The DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman said in return: "We make one thing clear: the DPRK will regard the sanctions as a declaration of war."

The DPRK have built a nuclear deterrent force despite enormous difficulties in order to effectively cope with the United States, according to the spokesman.

"We know what we should do at the decisive moment and will react to the hardline action of the US with the toughest action," he said.

The spokesman also slammed the US libeling of the DPRK as "an outpost of tyranny." He said: "We can never return to the talks, nor can we have any form of dealing with the US unless the ill fame of an 'outpost of tyranny' is shaken off."

Meanwhile, the spokesman reiterated that the DPRK's consistent ultimate goal is to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and that there is no change in its principled stand to attain it through negotiation.

The six-party talks, already held three rounds in Beijing, involved China, the DPRK, the United States, Russia, the Republic of Korea and Japan.

(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2005)