SEOUL, Feb 22: North Korea’s foreign ministry on Friday rejected a fresh offer of talks with the United States made by President George W. Bush during his visit to Seoul this week.

In a first official response to Bush’s gesture on Wednesday, the ministry instead accused the US leader of maintaining a policy aimed at stifling and slandering the communist country.

“We are not willing to have contact with his clan which is trying to change by force of arms the system chosen by the Korean people,” a ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the offical Korean Central News Agency.

The spokesman condemned the US leader for “engaging himself in mud-slinging at the DPRK (North Korea)” during his tour of Japan, South Korea and China.

“Bush’s outbursts against the DPRK system are an insult to the national feelings of the Korean people based on its system and little short of declaring denial of dialogue with the DPRK,” he added.

Bush on Wednesday used a visit to the demilitarised zone on the border between North and South Korea to call on Pyongyang to resume talks on the Stalinist state’s weapons programmes and other issues.

But the US president also made clear his antipathy to the communist state, which he described as a “despotic regime” that starved its own people.

On Thursday, Bush asked Chinese President Jiang Zemin to use his influence with North Korea to help kickstart talks.

His attempts to foster dialogue came after South Korea expressed concern that his description of North Korea as part of an “axis of evil “ would stymie any chance of rapprochement between the two Koreas.

South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his peace efforts towards the communist North under his “Sunshine Policy” aimed at opening up the isolated Pyongyang regime.

But his rapprochement drive has now virtually run aground with the North having shunned any official contacts with the South since last year.

The Korean peninsula remains the world’s last Cold War frontier after its division into the pro-Western South and the Stalinist North in 1945.

The South is home to some 37,000 US troops who deter any fresh military attack from the North since the 1950-53 Korean War sparked by Pyongyang.

Diplomacy NEEDED: The world should deal with North Korea and Iran through diplomatic channels and not by isolating the two countries, branded by the United States as partners with Iraq in an “axis of evil,” New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said here in Stockholm Friday.

“New Zealand would be in the camp that says that the best way to deal with countries like North Korea is to try and get a diplomatic solution to outstanding problems,” Clark told reporters following talks with Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson.

Clark declined direct comment on US President George W. Bush’s assertion that North Korea, Iran and Iraq constituted an “axis of evil” that posed a threat to western democratic states. But she said diplomacy should also be the basis for relations with Iran.

“We’ve had quite vigorous trade with Iran for many, many years and we see the present government in Iran as a step in the right direction,” Clark said.

“We focus on diplomatic solutions and dialogue.”

Clark was among a dozen self-styled “progressive” national leaders who gathered in Stockholm Friday ahead of an informal summit to discuss creative new approaches to dealing with global problems.

The leaders were scheduled to meet for dinner Friday and for three hours of informal talks on Saturday followed by a closing press conference.—AFP