N. Korea Lashes Out at ‘Hooligan’ Bush

North Korea appeared to slam the door on a diplomatic solution to its nuclear impasse with the Bush administration in a sharply worded denunciation Saturday, calling the president a “philistine” and a “hooligan” with whom it could not negotiate.

Colorful invective from Pyongyang is nothing new, but the latest war of words might have more serious implications, coming at a sensitive time.

U.S. officials warned allies Saturday that satellite imagery suggested an upcoming North Korean nuclear test, possibly as early as June, Associated Press reported. The news agency cited unnamed diplomats in Vienna, headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Last month, North Korea shut down a nuclear reactor in Yongbyon in what experts believe was a preparatory step to extracting weapons-grade plutonium.

The regime announced Feb. 10 that it had nuclear weapons, but it is not recognized as a nuclear power because it has not conducted a test explosion.

The crisis has worsened in recent weeks, with Pyongyang accelerating the pace of its nuclear program and refusing to resume multinational talks aimed at getting it to end its weapons efforts.

In its statement Saturday, attributed to an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman, North Korea said in its strongest language yet that it did not intend to negotiate with the Bush administration. Previous denunciations of U.S. policy have always left open the possibility of talks.

“Bush is a hooligan bereft of any personality as a human being, to say nothing of stature as president of a country. He is a half-baked man in terms of morality and a philistine whom we can never deal with,” the official KCNA news service reported him as saying.

North Korea “does not expect any solution to the nuclear issue or any progress in the DPRK-US relations during his term,” the spokesman said.

He was responding to comments Bush had made Thursday at a news conference in Washington, labeling North Korean leader Kim Jong Il a “tyrant” and a “dangerous person.” The Pyongyang regime is intolerant of criticism of the Kim family.

Christopher Hill, an assistant secretary of State who has been shuttling among Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo trying to restart the talks, tried to downplay Bush’s remarks Friday, saying, “I think the North Korean government would be wise to focus ... on what they need in this negotiation rather than be concerned about descriptions of them.”