25 October 2004	Monday	10 Ramazan 1425

BEIJING, Oct 24: US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived on Sunday in Beijing for talks which he hopes will lead to a quick resumption of stalled talks on the North Korean nuclear impasse amid new bellicose accusations from Pyongyang.

However, Powell, who flew in from Tokyo and heads to Seoul on Monday to cap a lightning three-nation Asian tour, will get an earful from Chinese officials about US policy toward Taiwan, Beijing's perennial complaint about Washington.

As Powell left Japan, where he flatly denied North Korean claims that the United States is trying to sabotage the multi-nation talks aimed at ending the deadlock, Pyongyang intensified its ever potent anti-US diatribe.

A day after threatening to bolster its military deterrent to counter "hostile" American acts, North Korea blasted a US-led joint naval exercise due to be held off Japan this week and accused the United States of being a "real criminal" intent on disturbing peace.

Minju Joson, the newspaper issued by the Stalinist state's cabinet, said the 22-nation drill "suggests that the US intends to lay an international siege to the DPRK (North Korea) through naval blockade in a bid to stifle it.

"The US pays lip service to 'peaceful solution to the nuclear issue' ... while talking about the resumption of the six-party talks, but this can never cover up the true colours of the US as a real criminal," it said.

In Japan Powell denied Pyongyang's persistent allegations of "hostile" US intent and said Washington and Tokyo both felt "a sense of urgency" in convincing North Korea to return without conditions to the six-nation talks.

"The sooner North Korea understands that there is only one way to solve this problem the better off we will be," he said after talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura.

One of the stated goals of the three-day naval drill, part of the US-proposed Proliferation Security Initiative, is to prevent the spread of WMD by and to North Korea.-AFP