North Korea on Tuesday rejected a US accusation that North Korea is pursuing a secret "uranium enrichment program" before the resumption of the six-party talks in Beijing.

 

It is an insolent act of "seeking a sinister political purpose," the leading newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in a signed commentary.

 

The US State Department has in a recent report termed North Korea as "a violator of the international arms control agreement" by pursuing a clandestine "uranium enrichment program."

 

US should be blamed for violating the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the DPRK-US Agreed Framework (AF), said the commentary.

 

"It is US that has pursued a nuclear war in utter disregard of the joint declaration and the AF," it said, citing the fact that US has "massively deployed nuclear weapons in and around South Korea reneging on its commitment neither to use nuclear weapons against North Korea nor to threaten it with those weapons."

 

The commentary also blamed US for pushing the DPRK-US nuclear stand-off to an extreme phase.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2005)