N.Korea calls Syria nuclear ties report "conspiracy"

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Tuesday recent media reports that it may be providing help to Syria's nuclear activities were groundless conspiracy fabricated by those who oppose the North's improving ties with Washington.

The Washington Post reported last week that intelligence had led some U.S. officials to believe Syria was receiving help from North Korea on some sort of nuclear facility. The New York Times ran a similar report.

"This is sheer misinformation," the North's official KCNA news agency quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying, referring to the reports.

The North made a pledge in October 2006 not to engage in nuclear proliferation and it still stood, the spokesman said.

North Korea last week hosted a team of nuclear officials and experts who made a rare road trip to Pyongyang and to the country's main nuclear complex at Yongbyon north of the capital in what was seen as a gesture to improve ties with the United States.

North Korea has suspended operation of the Yongbyon complex under a February deal in return for 50,000 tones of heavy fuel oil from South Korea. It is set to receive additional 950,000 tones by taking further disarmament steps this year.

"The DPRK never makes an empty talk but always tells truth," the Foreign Ministry spokesman said, using the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"The above-said story is nothing but a clumsy plot hatched by the dishonest forces who do not like to see any progress at the six-party talks and in the DPRK-U.S. relations."

U.S. President George W. Bush, who once lumped North Korea with Iran and pre-war Iraq as members of an "axis of evil," has offered a peace treaty with the North if Pyongyang completes nuclear disarmament.