DPRK threatens to quit talks

The US House of Representatives last week unanimously passed the bill, called "North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004," which moves to the Senate for a later vote before becoming law.

The bill calls for concrete steps on North Korean human rights abuses including aid to human rights groups and defectors.

North Korea's foreign ministry, in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, branded the bill a tissue of lies that slandered the Stalinist state by raising "non-existent" human rights issues.

Faced with such "ceaseless political provocations," the statement attributed to an unnamed ministry spokesman said North Korea could pull out of talks with the United States and boost its military firepower.

Meanwhile, more than 200 North Koreans arrived in South Korea yesterday behind a wall of secrecy as the government played down the biggest influx yet of defectors from the Stalinist state.

Officials said the mass arrival was "sensitive" and refused to discuss details, disclosing only that an Asiana Airlines flight airlifted the North Koreans from a Southeast Asian nation.

"This is a very unusual situation which shows how sensitive the whole thing is," said a spokesman for the foreign ministry.