N Korea warns of 'counter-measures' against sanctions

A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said, in a first response late Saturday to intensifying US hunts for Pyongyang-owned bank accounts overseas, that Washington was ratcheting up the pressure in vain.

"It is the height of folly for the US to think that it can solve any issue by means of sanctions and pressure," the spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

It said the US Treasury Department was tracing North Korea-opened bank accounts in "at least 10 countries" in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian states as well as Mongolia and Russia.

"Now that the Bush administration is escalating its pressure upon the DPRK through the tightened financial sanctions in a bid to keep itself politically alive, the DPRK is left with no other option but to take all necessary counter-measures to protect its ideology, system, sovereignty and dignity."

The spokesman, however, did not elaborate on what counter-measures could be taken, according to the KCNA report monitored here.