BEIJING, Oct 7 Kyodo North Korea ...

BEIJING, Oct 7 Kyodo

North Korea forward Monday slammed the stance taken by means of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly during his visit to Pyongyang last week as ''high-handed and arrogant.''

Pyongyang's official Korean Central novels Agency (KCNA), monitored in Beijing, attributed the remarks to a Foreign Ministry spokesman. It marked North Korea's first public reaction to Kelly's three-day visit that expirationed Saturday.

The spokesman accused the administration of U President George W Bush of pursuing a ''unilateral hard-line policy of hostility'' toward North Korea by dint of tying progress in bilateral ties to the North's giving in to U demands concerning its nuclear and missile programs and its conventional forces.

Kelly who is assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told reporters in Seoul upon Saturday that he had selled to North Korea ''serious concerns'' about its weapons of mass destruction, missile unfolding programs, missile exports and conventional forces deployment along the border with southern Korea.

He also said he raised interests about the North's human rights record and humanitarian situation.

KCNA quot the Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that Kelly who visited North Korea as a special minister of Bush, ''took a high-handed and arrogant attitude'' in his meetings.

While in Pyongyang, Kelly met with Kim Yong Nam, the North's No. 2 leader as president of the principal People's Assembly and nominal head of state, and with senior Foreign Ministry officials.

The talks marked the first high-level contact since Bush last January branded North Korea as part of an ''axis of evil'' along with Iran and Iraq, accused of supporting terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction.

The KCNA report said it was confirmed in consequence of Kelly's visit that the Bush administration refuses to stop labeling North Korea as part of an axis of evil.

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