"We are not going to give a quid pro quo to get rid of a nuclear weapons program that never should have existed in the first place," State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said Friday.
Moon Chung In, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University in Seoul, said that North Korea is now looking for guarantees that the Bush administration isn't planning an Iraq-style effort to overthrow its regime.
"North Korea is desperate to have talks. They are not asking for economic assistance at the moment -- it is security assurances," Moon said.
North Korea has also not revealed details of its new proposal, but it alluded to it in a statement late Friday.
"Since we have proposed a new way to resolve the nuclear issue from the position of preventing war and achieving solid peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, we will watch the United States' attitude toward it hereafter," a Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency.
