Clinton: US has no interest to offer aid to DPRK -- china.org.cn

The United States has no interest to offer economic aid to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), said Hillary Rodham Clinton, the US Secretary of State, on Thursday.

"We have absolutely no interest and no willingness on the part of this administration to give them any economic aid at all," Clinton told a hearing on the fiscal year 2009 war supplement held by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

"They are digging themselves into a deeper and deeper hole with the international community," said the secretary, referring to the latest threat made by Pyongyang to carry out tests of nuclear explosives and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The DPRK's foreign ministry said on Wednesday in a statement that the country will conduct nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests if the UN Security Council does not apologize for "infringing" on the country's sovereignty.

The country also planned to build a light water reactor as its first step to build a nuclear power plant, the statement said.

Earlier this month, the UN Security Council adopted a presidential statement condemning the April 5 launching activity by the DPRK and demanding the country "not conduct any further launch".

Pyongyang subsequently announced it was quitting the six-party talks on Korean Peninsular nuclear disarmament and would restart nuclear facilities in protest of the UN statement.

Ahead of the April 5 launch, the DPRK reportedly informed Washington that it no longer wishes to receive American food assistance, and asked US non-governmental organizations distributing food assistance in the DPRK to leave the country.

The Bush administration last May announced it would provide 500,000 metric tons of food to the DPRK, saying the assistance was not related to Pyongyang's nuclear program.

According to the State Department, the United States has delivered 169,000 metric tons of food to the DPRK in 2008 and 2009.The last shipment of US food aid arrived in the DPRK in late January and was being distributed by US NGOs.

(Xinhua News Agency May 1, 2009)