SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea will never dismantle its nuclear weapons unless the United States drops its "hostile policy," according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
South Korea's shock revelation it carried out nuclear experiments in the 1980s and 2000 showed Washington applied "double standards" towards North and South Korea, it said Saturday.
Six-party talks on the North's nuclear weapons programs also could not be resumed unless Washington changed its policy towards Pyongyang, it said.
The agency said "it is self-evident that the resumption of the talks can no longer be discussed unless the US drops its hostile policy based on double standards toward the DPRK (North Korea) and that the latter can never dismantle its nuclear deterrent force."
Pyongyang's latest pronouncement appeared to represent a toughening of the Stalinist state's position.
A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman on Friday had said Washington's hostile policy and the South's secret nuclear experiments had created "great hurdles" to its participation in the new round of multilateral talks due this month.
North Korea has hardened its stance since the South recently disclosed its own nuclear experiments -- to enrich uranium four years ago and to extract a small amount of plutonium in the 1980s.
Both enriched uranium and plutonium can be used to manufacture atomic bombs, but South Korea said its experiments were purely for academic purposes.
"South Korea's clandestine nuclear experiments go to prove that the US double standards are a fundamental factor of the nuclear proliferation," KCNA said.
Following Seoul's revelations about its clandestine nuclear activities, a US State Department spokesman said Washington did not regard the research as nuclear weapons activities, only "laboratory experiments."
"In order to avert an arms race and ensure lasting peace and security in Northeast Asia it is necessary for the US to come out to dialogue with willingness to drop its double standards, the root cause of the nuclear issue, and renounce its hostile policy toward the DPRK in practice," the North Korean news agency said.
A fourth round of talks on the North's nuclear programs was scheduled for this month but Pyongyang has expressed skepticism at their usefulness and questioned US intentions.
China admitted Thursday it would be difficult to hold the talks by the end of September as planned. Apart from the two Koreas, the talks include China, the United States, Russia and Japan.
The dispute over North Korea's nuclear ambitions flared in October 2002 when Washington accused Pyongyang of operating a nuclear weapons program based on enriched uranium, violating a 1994 agreement.
Pyongyang has denied running the uranium-based program but has restarted its plutonium program.