The communist country, through an unnamed foreign ministry spokesman, dismissed a US plan to give North Korea three months to shut down and seal its nuclear weapons facilities in return for major economic and diplomatic rewards.

"The US offer to allow a 'three-month preparatory period' for nuclear dismantlement was so unscientific and unrealistic that nobody could support it," the spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

But on a positive note, North Korea welcomed Washington's retreat from its earlier demand for the unconditional scrapping of the North's nuclear weapons as a first step towards resolving the standoff.

North Korea also welcomed Washington's decision at the last round of six-nation talks in Beijing last week to drop the term "CVID", referring to the US goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear facilities.

Washington has used the term as a mantra at previous rounds, much to the irritation of North Korean delegates, according to media reports here.

The statement, monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, was North Korea's first official reaction to last week's six-nation talks which ended without concrete progress.

Noting US flexibility at the talks, the statement said the United States had finally recognized the wisdom of North Korea's long-standing offer of a freeze in return for immediate rewards.

"It was noteworthy that the United States acknowledged the need to compensate the nuclear freeze while making what they call a progressive offer," the spokesman said.

He described as "fortunate" the US decision to refrain from using the term CVID at the latest talks.

Following the previous two rounds of talks, in February and August last year, North Korea's assessment was uniformly bleak.

After the February round, North Korea said further talks would be meaningless. Last August, it described the first round of talks as "useless" and blamed US inflexibility.

Since then Washington has come under pressure from its allies in the region and partners at the talks to do more to help resolve the standoff.

China, South Korea, and Japan have taken the lead in engaging North Korea while Washington remained aloof.

In Beijing last week, however, the United States tabled its first offer to North Korea since President George W. Bush was elected.

The plan called for a step-by-step dismantling of North Korea's plutonium and uranium weapons programs in return for aid and security guarantees and the easing of its political and economic isolation.

It was a major departure from Washington's previous hardline stand that North Korea's should not be rewarded for bad behaviour.

Pyongyang put forward its own plan hinging on a freeze of its nuclear facilities that reportedly excluded a uranium-based scheme that Washington insisted Pyongyang was running.

That issue is among the main stumbling blocks to progress.

North Korea has boasted openly of its plutonium-producing program at its Yongbyon complex, north of Pyongyang, but publicly denies any uranium-enriching activities.

The stand-off erupted in October 2002 when the United States said North Korea had acknowledged it was developing nuclear weapons through enriched uranium, violating a 1994 international agreement.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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