I'm convinced that the "Dear Leader" is off his rocker. How else can you figure a guy that keeps waving red flags and screaming "please come and kick my ass!"
[url]http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/05/10/international0107EDT0401.DTL[/url]
North Korea says it would take ``emergency measures'' if Washington does not drop hostile policy
Saturday, May 10, 2003
(05-10) 22:07 PDT SEOUL, South Korea (AP) --
North Korea warned the United States on Sunday that it would take "emergency measures" if Washington does not drop what it called hostile policy toward the communist country.
"If the United States does not give up its hostile policy toward North Korea -- and tries to resolve the nuclear issue by force to the end -- we cannot but take emergency measures," said Rodong Sinmun, the North's newspaper, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
It did not elaborate what it meant by "emergency measures."
North Korea claims the United States plans to invade the isolated communist state because of a dispute over the North's suspected development of nuclear weapons.
Washington says it seeks to resolve the nuclear dispute peacefully, but U.S. officials have not ruled out a military option.
In a separate dispatch, North Korea said Sunday it made a "new, bold" proposal during talks with the United States last month as "self-defense measures."
Although the North did not elaborate, U.S. officials have said Washington was reviewing the North's offer to give up its missiles and nuclear facilities in exchange for substantial U.S. economic benefits.
U.S. officials have said North Korea claimed it already has nuclear weapons and that it had reprocessed spent nuclear fuel for more weapons materials during talks held in Beijing last month.
The talks were the first high-level U.S.-North Korean contact since nuclear tensions spiked in October, when Washington claimed the North had a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 pact.
North Korea subsequently withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and took steps to restart nuclear facilities frozen under the pact.