NORTH KOREA: The US and its partners were all willing to sign a document declaring "we won't attack you" so long as North Korea agrees to abandon its nuclear ambitions, President Bush said yesterday.
North Korea has dismissed the offer of multilateral security guarantees as laughable.
"I guess they're trying to stand up to the five nations that are now uniting in convincing North Korea to disarm and my only reaction is we'll continue to send a very clear message to the North Koreans," President Bush said in Bali, Indonesia before flying to Australia.
Speaking with reporters later aboard Air Force One, Mr Bush said the US and its partners in the negotiations were "all willing to sign some sort of document - not a treaty - that says 'we won't attack you'. But he needs to abandon his nuclear programme in a verifiable way."
In a commentary published late on Tuesday, the communist North's official KCNA news agency said Pyongyang wanted a bilateral treaty with the US - a reference to its desire for a non-aggression pact which Washington has ruled out.
During the Bangkok summit of Asia-Pacific leaders which ended on Tuesday, Mr Bush significantly shifted policy by saying he was sharing ideas on how to give North Korea security guarantees short of a non-aggression treaty. All 20 other summit leaders backed this stance.
North Korea was not present because it is not a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum. But it lost little time in shooting down the idea.
"We have asked for the United States to stop its hostile policy and a bilateral treaty between North Korea and the United States, and not for some sort of security guarantee," said KCNA.
"It's laughable and doesn't deserve even any consideration that the United States gives a security guarantee on the condition that we drop our nuclear development."