By Xinhua,
Pyongyang : The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) condemned on Saturday the United States for slandering the Asian country in a recently released report, saying it “did seriously hurt the DPRK.”
The 2008 “advancing freedom and democracy report,” published by the U.S. State Department on May 23, branded the DPRK as a “repressive country” and a “close and highly militarized society.”
“In this arrogant and self-justified document crafted by it according to its own domestic law, the U.S. let loose a spate of balderdash against the DPRK,” a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry told the official news agency KCNA Saturday.
“This can not but be an intolerable provocation and a serious insult to a dialogue partner,” the spokesman said.
“Such behavior of the U.S. side leaves the DPRK skeptical about whether it has true willingness for ‘peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue’ and the ‘improvement of U.S.-DPRK relations’ it has advocated,” he added.
International efforts aimed at disarmament of the DPRK nuclear weapons have made progress in recent weeks since the Pyongyang handed over thousands of pages of key nuclear weapons documents to Washington.