North Korea demands U.S. apology
 |  U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. |
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 Vice President Dick Cheney on "Larry King Live."
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(CNN) -- North Korea has vowed not to return to the nuclear bargaining table unless it receives an apology from the United States for making hostile remarks about its leadership.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney called North Korean leader Kim Jong Il "one of the world's most irresponsible leaders" in an interview with CNN on Monday.
In reponse, North Korea said Cheney "is hated as the most cruel monster and blood-thirsty beast," according to a report carried in the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Thursday.
The two countries have long been engaged in a war of words, and the tone of Cheney's latest comments was not unusual for the Bush administration.
John Bolton, now Bush's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, as undersecretary of state in 2003 labeled Kim as a "tyrannical dictator," while U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has labeled the communist country "an outpost of tyranny" and Kim a "dangerous person."
In the KCNA report, North Korea said it was willing to rejoin nuclear disarmament talks if U.S. officials retracted their remarks and apologized.
Rice has previously refused to apologize for her remarks about North Korea, stating she was just telling the "truth."
According to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, in the KCNA report a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman is quoted as saying: "What Cheney uttered at a time when the issue of six-party talks is high on the agenda is little short of telling (North Korea) not to come to the talks."
The spokesman said Cheney's remarks were compelling the country to stay away from the stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons program.
The talks, which involve the United States, the two Koreas, Russia, China and Japan, have failed to reach a breakthrough in a 31-month nuclear impasse over the North's nuclear program. Pyongyang denies it is pushing a uranium-enrichment program to make nuclear weapons.
In his remarks to CNN on Monday -- part of a wide-ranging interview that covered topics such as Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay detainees -- Cheney termed Kim "one of the world's most irresponsible leaders," who starved his people and ran a police state.
Cheney also expressed concerns about Kim's quest for nuclear weapons.
"He's got one of the most heavily militarized societies in the world.
"The vast bulk of his population live in abject poverty and stages of malnutrition. And he doesn't take care of his people at all. He obviously wants to throw his weight around and become a nuclear power."
The war of words comes amid hopes the stalled nuclear talks would resume after U.S and North Korean officials had their first face to face contact for six months in May.
