China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan Friday said that a Japanese press report about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) request for China's supply of arms is "absolutely untrue, irresponsible and has ulterior motives."

Kong made the remarks when a reporter asked him to verify a report by Japan's Sankei Shimbun, which said the DPRK dispatched senior officials to China to ask for China's immediate supply of arms, but China rejected the request.

Kong said that Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the DPRK's Supreme People's Assembly and Paek Nam Sun, DPRK's minister of foreign affairs, stopped over in Beijing in February on their way to Malaysia for the 13th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Kong added that during their stay in China, the two sides agreed to further enhance bilateral traditional friendship.

(Xinhua News Agency March 29, 2003)