SEOUL
The US yesterday called on North Korea to act within days on its pledge to halt its nuclear weapons programme.
North Korea failed to meet a Saturday deadline to shut down and seal its bomb-making nuclear reactor.
US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Washington was prepared "to hold on for a few more days" after his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei, asked the US for patience during Beijing talks.
"We're not happy the (North) essentially has missed this very important deadline," Hill said yesterday in Beijing. "We're obviously going to be watching the situation very closely in the coming days."
The US sent a message to North Korea through its embassy in China urging it to fulfill commitments in a February disarmament agreement, which would give the North energy aid and political concessions for disarming.
The North said last week it will only move when it receives money from accounts frozen in 2005 after the US blacklisted a bank to pressure the regime, its main precondition for agreeing to disarm.
The $25m (£13.6m) was freed for withdrawal last week after weeks of delay from a bank in the Chinese territory of Macau, but it remains unclear when the North will receive the money.
No official comment has come from the North since the deadline, with the country consumed in celebrations of the birthday of late founder Kim Il Sung, known as the Day of the Sun. Kim, father of current leader Kim Jong Il, remains the main focus of an immense personality cult and since his 1994 death still retains the title as the country's president.
The state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper yesterday urged all North Koreans to become "invincible warriors that dedicate our body and mind" to Kim Jong Il, their "destiny and future".-AP
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