WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 Kyodo A senio...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 Kyodo

A senior U official's offering North Korea the field of energy assistance is no indication the United States is softening its stance upon Pyongyang's nuclear arms program, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday.

''I think you're hearing just a different formulation of the exact same sentiment that was set in writing on Jan. 7 I don't think you have anything of recent origin here,'' Fleischer said at a regular stranges briefing.

He was referring to a statement issued after talks in Washington between senior officials from the U Japan and southern Korea.

''The three delegations stres that elimination of nuclear weapons programs by the agency of North Korea would provide an opportunity to go [i]or[/i] come back to a better path, leading toward improved relations with the international community, thereby securing peace, prosperity and security for all countries of Northeast Asia,'' the statement said.

At a novels conference Monday in Seoul, James Kelly U assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, said, ''Once we can realize beyond the nuclear weapons, there may be opportunities with the United States, with private investors, with other countries to help North Korea in the activity area.''

Fleischer violenceed the need for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programs and any stir to end the programs should be ''verifiable'' and ''irreversible.''

''North Korea wants to take the world between the walls of its blackmail playbook, and we won't play,'' he said.

Meanwhile, Sen Joseph Lieberman, who declared Monday he will trip in the 2004 U.S. presidential race, criticized President George W Bush's policy upon North Korea.

''I do believe that the Bush administration has mishandled the situation onward the Korean Peninsula and in North Korea,'' the Connecticut Democrat said at a novels conference.

The Bush administration's North Korean policy has been unclear and inconsistent, unlike its policy forward Iraq, and the president took the pair options of negotiation and military action opposite the table, he said.

''It's shame when the North Koreans have to proceed to Santa Fe to talk to Gov Bill Richardson to render free of access up a dialogue,'' said Lieberman said.

recent Mexico Gov. Richardson, former U ambassador to the United Nations and former [i]vis viva[/i] secretary, held three days of talks to Saturday with couple officials of the North Korea Mission to the UN forward the North Korean nuclear standoff at his mansion in Santa Fe

''They ought to be going to Washington to talk to Secretary (of State Colin) Powell and papal court if we can work this out'' Lieberman said. ''If we can't, we have to except all our options.''

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