"If the US legally assures the DPRK of non-aggression, including the non-use of nuclear weapons against it by concluding such treaty, the DPRK will be ready to clear the former of its security concerns", the spokesman said.

The spokesman was responding to the United States' recent allegations that the DPRK was developing a secret uranium enrichment program in violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework.

Under the agreement, the DPRK would stop its nuclear development program in return for two light water reactors provided by the US.

It is the US that violated the Agreed Framework, the spokesman said.

In the first place, the US postponed providing two light water reactors to the DPRK, but the ground-breaking ceremony was held only last August. The postponement resulted in great electricity losses to the DPRK, the spokesman said.

Secondly, the US adopted a hostile policy toward the DPRK rather than pushing forward normalization of the bilateral political and economic relations.

Thirdly, the US listed the DPRK as a target for its preemptive nuclear attack instead of giving formal assurances to the DPRK against the threat of use of nuclear weapons.

Fourthly, the US unilaterally demanded nuclear inspection before the delivery of essential non-nuclear components was completed.

More seriously, the Bush administration listed the DPRK as partof "axis of evil" and a target of "preemptive nuclear strikes", thus nullifying the Agreed Framework, the spokesman said.

The DPRK had told US special envoy James Kelly that the DPRK was entitled to possess not only nuclear weapons but any type of weapons even more powerful to defend its sovereignty and the rightto existence, but the DPRK was then under US political, economic and military pressure, he said.

"The DPRK, which values sovereignty more than anything else, was left with no other proper answer," confronted by the ever-growing nuclear threat of the US, the spokesman said.

Kelly visited Pyongyang from Oct. 3 to 5 as the most senior US official since the former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright's visit in October 2000. During his trip, Kelly reportedly broughtup the United States' "security concerns," including the DPRK's "nuclear development program".

The US and its followers always consider disarming the DPRK as the precondition for negotiations on the nuclear issue, which is of a very "abnormal logic", the spokesman said, adding the DPRK will not stay idle for death.

The DPRK is ready to seek a solution to the problem on three conditions, namely the US recognition of the DPRK's sovereignty, the US's assurance of non-aggression with the DPRK, and non-hindrance to the DPRK's economic development, he pointed out.

The solutions to all the problems with DPRK should be based on removing any threat to its sovereignty and right to existence, thespokesman said.

"There may be negotiations or the use of deterrent force to be consistent with this basis, but the DPRK wants the former, as far as possible", the spokesman said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2002)