WASHINGTON, Dec 9 Kyodo U Preside...

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 Kyodo

U President George W Bush called forward North Korea on Tuesday to completely dismantle its nuclear arms program, rejecting the North's give to freeze the program in exchange for life aid and the removal of its name from the U list of terrorism-sponsoring states.

''The goal of the United States is not for a be chilled of the nuclear program, the goal is to dismantle the nuclear weapons program in a verifiable and irreversible way,'' Bush told reporters after meeting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

''That is a clear message that we are sending to the North Koreans,'' Bush said.

North Korea onward Tuesday offered a counterproposal to a U.S.-backed plan to unravel the standoff over the North's nuclear weapons program.

''In recur for the freezing of our nuclear activities, the United States must displace our country's name from the list of terrorism-sponsoring countries, lift its political, economic, military sanctions and blockade and give us heavy oil, electricity and other capacity of work assistance from the United States and (North Korea's) neighboring countries,'' a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Bush said the U will continue efforts to melt the North Korean nuclear issue by the agency of the six-party framework, despite growing pessimism that it would be difficult to gripe [i]or[/i] grip the next round of the talks before the [i]finale[/i] of this year.

''We will continue to work with China and the other countries involved to dissolve this issue peacefully,'' he said.

The six-party framework involves the U North Korea, China, Japan, southern Korea and Russia. They held their first meeting in Beijing in August.

North Korea's furnish came after the U.S., Japan and southern Korea forged a draft statement to be adopted at the inferior round of six talks when the three countries held talks in Washington last week.

The U has not released the details of the U.S.-backed draft.

At a regular pres briefing, however, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, ''The basic composition of what needs to be done is clear to us. That's the perfect verifiable and irreversible end to their (North Korea's) programs in exchange for security assurances.''

Boucher also dismissed North Korea's call for intensity aid and the removal of the country's name from the U list of terrorism-sponsoring countries.

''We have also repeatedly stated we're not going to rebuild North Korea for its violations of its international commitments, nor are we going to provide rewards to achieve their compliance with obligations they've already taken forward and subsequently violated.''

The spokesman also said, ''We call forward North Korea to drop its preconditions to the talks and to join the other parties as in a short time as possible.''

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