US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has ruled out the possibility that the United States gives incentives, like those offered to Iran, to the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK) in exchange for the DPRK to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

"You would want to be careful with the North Koreans on front-loading incentives, because we know that story, we know how that worked out last time," Rice said in an interview with The Washington Times.

This was Rice's first interview with a newspaper since she became the secretary of state six weeks ago, and the transcript of the interview was published by the Times on Saturday.

"They took the carrots and ... started breaking their obligations," Rice said, referring to a 1994 nuclear deal between Pyongyang and Washington during the Clinton administration.

Rice announced in a statement on Friday that The United States has agreed to drop its objection to Iran's bid to join the World Trade Organization and allow some sales of civilian aircraft parts to Iran to support European Union's diplomatic efforts to solve the nuclear standoff with Tehran.

But Rice said that the DPRK is not worthy of the economic gestures Washington is extending to Iran.

She also said that she would not apologize to the DPRK for calling it an "outpost of tyranny" while appearing at a Senate confirmation hearing in January.

At that hearing, Rice named the DPRK, Iran, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Burma and Belarus as "outposts of tyranny."

"I don't think there is any doubt that I spoke the truth, and I don't know that one apologizes for speaking the truth," Rice said.
 
 (Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2005)