June 30, 2003	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 29,1424

UNITED NATIONS, June 28: North Korea on Friday warned the UN Security Council not to give in to the US pressure in determining whether Pyongyang posed a nuclear threat.

Underscoring that the world body should be an “impartial” judge, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) foreign minister, Paek Nam-sun, said in a letter to the council: “It can be said that now the United Nations is at the crossroads of whether it will maintain the international order led by the United Nations or give way to the establishment of dangerous world order led by an individual country,”

The letter was sent a week after the United States launched its second attempt this year to persuade the 15-nation council to adopt a statement condemning North Korea — also known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK — for reviving its nuclear weapons programme.

A draft statement circulated by the Americans here calls on Pyongyang “to immediately and completely dismantle its nuclear weapons programme in a verifiable and irreversible manner and fully comply with international nuclear safeguards.”

China, joined by Russia, blocked an earlier US effort in April to persuade the council to condemn North Korea. US President George W. Bush has branded as part of an “axis of evil” along with Iran and Iraq.