US Defense Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld strongly opposed direct talks with North Korea tonight, saying it would quickly lead to North Korean demands to be paid for halting their nuclear actvities.
"It's hard for me to believe that there is any price that we'd be willing to pay for that," he said in a question and answer session at the Hoover Institution.
Mr Rumsfeld said the threat posed by proliferation of North Korean nuclear material and technology was a problem for the world, not just the United States.
The US administration has tried with little success to enlist Russia and China as well as allies South Korea and Japan in bringing multi-lateral pressure on Pyongyang to forsake its nuclear weapons program.
But Mr Rumsfeld said bilateral talks, as North Korea has demanded, "would not make sense."
"It would end up very quickly as to what would the United States be willing to pay North Korea to stop doing something that they're doing that we would prefer they not do - make nuclear material and sell it to other countries or make nuclear weapons with it."
AFP