MOSCOW: Keeping up its tough rhetoric, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's Embassy in Moscow yesterday released a statement dismissing US demands made during last week's talks in Beijing as a "game even kids won't play."

The statement from a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry that was released by the Embassy to the Interfax news agency, said the US demands during the latest talks were even less acceptable to Pyongyang than Washington's earlier stance.

"Despite our goodwill and generosity, the United States has shown no readiness to drop its hostile policy towards the DPRK during the latest talks and blatantly put forward new gang-style demands," the statement said, according to the Interfax news agency.

The DPRK took an angry, hard-line stance following last week's landmark six-nation talks about the nuclear dispute with the United States. Pyongyang on Saturday dismissed the need for more talks and said that it would continue developing a nuclear deterrent force.

The United States insists that the DPRK scrap its nuclear programmes, but the DPRK says the United States must first provide security and aid guarantees.

"That means that in the situation of mutual targeting the DPRK and the United States find themselves in, they promise not to shoot and we are supposed to lay down weapons first," the DPRK statement said, according to Interfax. "It's a game even kids won't play."

Despite angry statements from Pyongyang, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov yesterday voiced hope for further talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.

"We didn't expect any breakthrough, this was only the first round, but it was important that the dialogue has begun," Ivanov said in a speech before students.

Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, who represented Russia during Beijing's talks, said the parties had reached a tentative agreement to meet again in October or November, but added that "each country wanted to assess the results before making a decision on the next round," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported yesterday.

(Xinhua News Agency September 2, 2003)