SEOUL/WASHINGTON, Jan 10: North Korea withdrew from the global treaty to prevent the spread of atomic weapons on Friday, sparking alarm around the world while the United States said the move, although a cause for concern, was not unexpected.

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency watchdog sought to reassure worried governments that it did not see the decision as raising the stakes in the crisis and felt there was still room for diplomacy to work.

North Korea announced it was pulling out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in a statement carried by its Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Accusing the United States of seeking to topple its political system, North Korea also denounced the IAEA as an American stooge and rejected the UN nuclear watchdog’s call to re-admit expelled inspectors.

“The government...today declared its withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its total freedom from the binding force of the safeguards accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency,” KCNA said.

In making the announcement Pyongyang said it had no intention of developing nuclear weapons and it sent two more diplomats to join the two already holding talks with Washington’s former UN ambassador, Bill Richardson.

“There is still an opportunity for diplomacy. It’s not over until it’s over,” the spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said in Vienna.

The announcement by Pyongyang led to condemnation by world leaders.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, in keeping with the US desire not to inflame tensions on the Korean peninsula, said the move was not unexpected.

US President George Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin said the North Korean announcement was a cause for concern and agreed to work together on it.

Fleischer said Bush stressed in a telephone call with Jiang that “the United States has no hostile intentions toward North Korea, and sought a peaceful, multilateral solution to the problem created by Pyongyang’s action”.

South Korea, technically still at war with the North, said the withdrawal was “a serious threat to peace” and urged Pyongyang to reverse the decision.

US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton said the North Korean move came as no surprise. “The North Koreans were not adhering to the treaty when they were still a part of it,” Bolton told a news conference in Thailand.

WORLD WORRIED: Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, visiting Russia, said North Korea should reverse its decision. Moscow, one of Pyongyang’s few remaining friends, also voiced alarm but said it was hopeful the crisis could be resolved.