N. Korea says there will be no talks with S. Korean government

SEOUL, May 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Saturday that there is no chance of any
serious dialogue between the two Koreas because of what it claimed was an
anti-North Korea campaign by Seoul's Lee Myung-bak administration.
"There simply is no need to even consider holding talks between the North and the
South while the Lee Myung-bak group is publicly trying to smear the name of our
republic and bluntly denying the republic," a spokesman for the Committee for the
Peaceful Reunification of Fatherland said in a statement carried by the North's
Korean Central News Agency.
The statement comes amid reports that Seoul and Pyongyang are trying to set a
date for talks, possibly next week. The talks will be a follow-up to a meeting
held in the North's border town of Kaesong on April 21 over a joint industrial
park there.
The unidentified spokesman for the North Korean committee claimed Seoul was
stepping up its anti-North Korea campaign by raising human rights issues he
claimed did not even exist.
"The committee strongly denounces the Lee Myung-bak group's anti-DPRK campaign as
a serious, unacceptable political provocation," the statement said, referring to
North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"The only outcome the Lee Myung-bak group will ever get from confrontation with
the DPRK is a miserable end," it added.
bdk@yna.co.kr
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