By Ji Eun

Los Angeles -- The "Advancing Freedom and Democracy Reports" by the US DOS on May 23 displays that a hyper-modern campaign to subject the world to the United States goes on.

The United States may be optimistic but another country is surely skeptical.

"The document has a quarrel against 106 countries of the world as it pleased," said a spokesman for the DPRK FM on May 31. "In this arrogant and self-justified document crafted by it according to its own domestic law, the United States let loose a spate of balderdash against the DPRK."

The report brands the DPRK as a "repressive country" and a "close and highly militarized society."

"This can not but be an intolerable provocation and a serious insult to a dialogue partner," the spokesman said. "Such behavior of the US side leaves the DPRK skeptical about whether it has true willingness for "peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue" and the "improvement of US-DPRK relations" it has advocated."

The remark by the spokesman also seems an indirect response to the latest DPRK-US meeting in Beijing, after which US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said in Moscow on May 30 that he was optimistic that negotiations on the DPRK"s nuclear disarmament would be successful.

Source text in Korean

Related story:
North Korea questions US stance on nuclear issue, AP, May 31, 2008