North Korea on Saturday said Japan should not attend six-party nuclear disarmament talks after Japanese officials reportedly said Tokyo would not recognise the communist country as a nuclear-armed state.
"It is the view of the DPRK (North Korea) that since the US attends the six-party talks, there is no need for Japan to participate in them as a local delegate," a spokesman of its foreign ministry said.
"Because it is no more than a state of the US and it is enough for Tokyo just to be informed of the results of the talks by Washington," he was quoted as saying by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea said Wednesday it would end its year-long boycott of the disarmament talks with South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia on condition that the issue of lifting US financial sanctions would be settled during the negotiations.
Japanese leaders behaved "impudently" after Pyongyang's announcement, asserting that "Japan cannot accept North Korea's return to the six-party talks as a nuclear-armed state," the spokesman said.
"The Japanese authorities have thus clearly proved themselves that they are political imbeciles incapable of judging the trend of the situation and their deplorable position."
"The DPRK (North Korea) has never asked Japan to participate in the six-party talks. In fact, it was displeased with Japan's participation in the six-party talks, but has properly treated it, taking the relations with other participating countries into consideration," the spokesman said.
The new administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe must have a lot of work to do, he said.
"It had better, therefore, mind its own business instead of poking its nose into the work of the talks to its inconvenience.
"It would be much better for Japan to refrain from participating in the six-party talks and less attendants would be not bad for making the talks fruitful," he added.
The six-party talks, which began in 2003 under Beijing's aegis, are aimed at convincing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme in exchange for economic incentives and security guarantees.