SEOUL, Nov 29: North Korea on Thursday threatened to take unspecified counter-measures unless the United States changed its “hostile” policy toward the communist state.

“We can no longer just sit back. We have no choice but to take counter-measures with the United States persistently raising questions over our human rights record, religion, and demanding an inspection of weapons of mass destruction,” a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said.

The “hostile attitude” of the US government showed it had no intention of entering into dialogue, even though it has declared itself ready for talks without preconditions, the spokesman was quoted as saying by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

The spokesman also lamented that Washington still listed North Korea as a nation sponsoring terrorism, even though he said Pyongyang had adopted an anti-terrorism stance.

“It is absurd for the United States, which puts the yoke of a ‘terrorist sponsor’ upon us, to call for our cooperation in anti-terrorist activities,” the spokesman also said through North Korea’s Chungang radio.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has said Pyongyang would immediately normalize ties with Washington should the United States lift North Korea from its blacklist of states backing terrorism.

The spokesman criticized the US for demanding an inspection of the North’s weapons of mass destruction while neglecting Pyongyang’s demands for compensation for delays in the construction of light-water reactors.

President George W. Bush this week called on North Korea to permit foreign inspectors to verify that it is not producing weapons of mass destruction, and warned Pyongyang to halt foreign missile sales.

Much-delayed construction began in earnest only in September on two nuclear power reactors in North Korea that will produce less weapons-grade plutonium than the communist state’s old reactors, which were closed under a 1994 accord.

The new reactors were originally to be built by 2003 but delays, including the withdrawal of half the North Korean workers over a wage dispute, have pushed back the finish until at least 2008.—AFP