N.Korea says US envoy remark damages nuclear talks

http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-10T063426Z_01_KRA022886_RTRUKOC_0_US-KOREA-NORTH-AMBASSADOR.xml

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea strongly criticized the U.S. envoy to Seoul on Saturday for describing the communist state as a "criminal regime", saying his remark was a declaration of war that had killed the spirit of nuclear arms talks.

Alexander Vershbow, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, said at a forum on Wednesday Pyongyang was engaged in the sale of weapons and illicit narcotics and Washington would not lift sanctions against it as long as those activities continue.

"This is a criminal regime," he said.

The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, which handles relations with the South, dug deep for rhetoric to respond.

"What he uttered is an intolerable provocation and insult to the political system in the DPRK and its dignity and a very serious development that fundamentally overturned the spirit of the joint statement adopted at the fourth round of the six-party talks," a spokesman for the committee said.

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"Successive U.S. ambassadors in Seoul have never made such virulent outcries as those let loose by the new U.S. ambassador," the committee said. "The DPRK will regard his utterance as a sort of provocative declaration of a war against the whole Korean nation and will mercilessly retaliate against it."

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Pot, Kettle, black.

Bush "diplomacy". Insulting a nuhkquehlar power.

See my post from 2 days ago, as the U.S. ambassador lamblasted N. Korea. I expected the "war of words" would escalate, in yet another dangerous toss of the dice.

One day, it may be more than just "words" hurled back and forth. It could get much, much worse.