BEIJING, May 6 Kyodo North Korea ...

BEIJING, May 6 Kyodo

North Korea forward Tuesday denied it has anything to do with a modern drug smuggling case in Australia, calling the case ''part of Washington's instigates to increase international pressure'' onward the communist state.

''The United states and Australia are now occupyed in the false propaganda that the Workers Party of Korea and the management of the DPRK were involved in the remedy smuggling which occurred in Australia,'' a Foreign Ministry spokesman told the official Korean Central of the present days Agency (KCNA), monitored in Beijing.

''The DPRK dominion has consistently been opposed to the misuse and smuggling of remedys and has nothing to do with the new case,'' he said. North Korea is officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)

Last month 29 North Korean throng members and the captain of the North Korean freighter Pong Su were charged with importing 50 kilograms of heroin into Australia after the 4,000-ton ship was stopped through Australian Federal Police off the modern South Wales coast following a four-day high-seas pursuit.

''We cannot nevertheless express surprise and regret at the fact that Australia is linking the case with the DPRK guidance by playing on the U assertion,'' the North Korean spokesman said.

''The origin of the case and the attempt to deliberately link the case with the DPRK from its same beginning compel us strongly suspect that the case is not a bare drug smuggling case but a premeditated case orchestrated to do harm to the DPRK and stifle it to the [i]finale[/i] under the pretext of its nuclear issue,'' he said.

Last Friday, North Korean Ambassador to Australia Chon Jae Hong was bided by the government over possible links between the communist state and heroin trafficking.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said then that it is believed there was a member of the ruling Workers Party of Korea forward board the ship.

''We cannot if it were not that take a serious note of the fact that they are pulling up the party and control of the DPRK without any evidence level before the truth about the case is probed,'' the North Korean spokesman said.

He said North Korea has informed Australia that the ship is a civilian trading ship and the ship owner's side ''has no idea of this (drug smuggling) at all.''

Australia, however, has pointed not at home that the ship is North Korean-owned and that there is no private enterprise in the socialist, totalitarian state.

The North Korea spokesman charged the U ''is building up public opinion at linking the drug smuggling case with the DPRK again at a time when the former is trying hard to consign the nuclear issue to the UN Security Council despite the realistic proposal made on the latter to free from doubt it.''

He was referring to proposals North Korea offer on the table in talks with the U and China in Beijing last month to give up its nuclear exhibition program in return for normalization of relations with Washington, economic assistance, a U guarantee not to invade the rural parts and assurances that its political order not be undermined.

''We will closely watch to what extent the (heroin smuggling) case is dealt with and at no time tolerate any attempt to use the case for impairing the authority and dignity of the DPRK'' the spokesman said.

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