A week of intense diplomacy has left world capitals still unsure as to whether North Korea will test a second nuclear device or return to talks following the imposition of UN sanctions.
News reports had raised hopes that tension was easing after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was quoted as telling Chinese envoy Tang Jiaxuan that he planned no further tests following the detonation of a device on October 9th that shocked the world.
The Japanese news agency Kyodo said on Sunday that Kim had expressed his intention of honoring a 1992 declaration for the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula during talks with Tang, saying it was a "dying instruction" of his father - the country's late leader, Kim Il Sung.
But US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, heading home after a whirlwind tour of Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Moscow, cast doubt on the report, saying Pyongyang was bent on escalating the crisis.
"Tang did not tell me that Kim Jong-il either apologised for the test or said that he would not ever test again," Rice said.
"The Chinese did not, in a fairly thorough briefing to me, say anything about an apology. The North Koreans, I think, would like to see an escalation of the tension."
South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted an unidentified diplomatic source in Beijing as saying Kim had told the former Chinese foreign minister that Pyongyang would resume the six-country talks if Washington ended its financial sanctions.
But Ms Rice said these curbs would remain and she questioned their commitment to resuming talks.
"The financial measures are a legal process which has to do with counterfeiting money. The (US) president has made very clear at every turn that he is going to defend the US currency," Ms Rice said.
Korea has boycotted the talks, which bring together the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China, because of Washington's financial restrictions.