North Korea on Tuesday threatened to boycott six-way nuclear disarmament talks unless the United States lifted financial sanctions imposed on the impoverished Stalinist state.
Rodong Sinmun, the North's communist party newspaper, which serves as Pyongyang's official mouthpiece, accused Washington of shunning negotiations on the sanctions issue to disrupt the six-way talks.
"It is impossible to resume the six-party talks under such provocative sanctions applied by the US upon the DPRK (North Korea)," Rodong said in a commentary carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
Rodong said the United States must "take practical measures to lift the financial sanctions against DPRK" to get the nuclear talks going.
The row over US sanctions imposed on North Korea over alleged money laundering and counterfeiting has emerged as a fresh stumbling block to the six-nation talks, which also include South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.
After more than two years of negotiations, North Korea finally agreed in September to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in return for economic and diplomatic benefits.
But the latest round of talks ended in stalemate three weeks ago with Pyongyang accusing Washington of breaching the September agreement by imposing sanctions on its firms.