US: After a week in which the US deployed 15 stealth fighters in South Korea, US vice-president Richard Cheney stepped up pressure on North Korea yesterday by making a personal attack on the country's leader Kim Jong Il, calling him "irresponsible".
The comments, echoing controversial remarks that angered Pyongyang which were made by John Bolton, the Bush administration's nominee for ambassador to the UN, mark an escalation of US rhetoric aimed at persuading North Korea not to test a nuclear weapon.
Interviewed on CNN's Larry King Live, Mr Cheney said that he would describe Kim Jong Il as "one of the world's more irresponsible leaders".
He accused him of running "a police state" and one of the most heavily militarised societies in the world, while most of the population lived "in abject poverty and stages of malnutrition. And he obviously wants to throw his weight around and become a nuclear power".
Since last year, North Korea has refused to attend six-party talks involving the US, North Korea, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan and focused on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, because of what it described as a "hostile" US attitude.
A Russian delegation which visited Pyongyang in May said North Korea wanted the Bush administration to apologise for publicly branding Kim a "tyrant" and their country "an outpost of tyranny".
Two years ago as a leading State Department official, Mr Bolton called Kim Jong Il a "tyrannical dictator" who has made life "a hellish nightmare" for thousands of North Korean civilians.
These remarks led Pyongyang to refuse to deal with Mr Bolton during the talks.
Mr Cheney said North Korea must "understand that they're not going to have normal relationships with the outside world, in terms of commerce, industry and trade, if they become a nuclear power".
He defended Mr Bolton, whose nominations has stalled over Democratic criticisms of his record, calling him "a superb public official" who was badly needed at the UN because, he said, the world body was losing public confidence.
The deployment of 15 F-117 stealth fighters to South Korea coincides with the cutting by the US of the only official dealings with North Korea - the search for soldiers missing in action since the Korean War.
The Pentagon said it broke off the contacts and withdrew its military officials to ensure their safety in what a spokesman called the "uncertain environment" created by the breakdown of talks.
Pentagon officials described the deployment of the stealth fighters as part of a long-planned training exercise. On Sunday, Pyongyang, which often uses bellicose language, called the stealth fighter deployment "a risky prelude to war".
The Bush administration has considered imposing a partial blockade on North Korea, but this is opposed by China which shares a land border with the reclusive communist state. Six-nation talks began in mid-2003 and broke down in June 2004.