North Korea calls Bush 'an imbecile'

North Korea described President George W. Bush yesterday as a tyrannical political imbecile who put Hitler in the shade and said Pyongyang could see no justification for talks with the US.

Six-party talks on the North's nuclear weapons ambitions, planned for this month, have yet to materialise. The date for more senior talks is also in question, although diplomats note Pyongyang often raises its rhetoric before talking or compromising.

The official KCNA news agency quoted a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying Bush had hurled "malignant slanders and calumnies" against Pyongyang's leadership.

"This clearly proves that the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] was quite right when it commented that he is a political imbecile bereft of even elementary morality as a human being and a bad guy, much less being a politician," the spokesman said. "Bush is a tyrant that puts Hitler into the shade."

He said US policy made it impossible to hold working-level talks between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the US.

- REUTERS