North Korea said today it was ready to return to international talks on ending its nuclear weapons programme, but demanded negotiations first with the United States.
Underscoring tension over the North's bid to become an atomic weapons power, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted an official in Seoul as saying Pyongyang was in the final stages of restoring its Yongbyon nuclear plant.
Pyongyang's latest offer, made during a high profile visit to the reclusive state by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, largely repeats Pyongyang's long-held contention that Washington holds the key to its willingness to give up building an atomic arsenal.
"The hostile relations between the DPRK [North Korea] and the United States should be converted into peaceful ties through the bilateral talks without fail," North Korea's KCNA news agency quoted leader Kim Jong-il as saying during a meeting with Wen.
"We expressed our readiness to hold multilateral talks, depending on the outcome of the DPRK-US talks. The six-party talks are also included in the multilateral talks."
Washington has said recently it was open to direct talks with the North to coax it back to six party nuclear talks with the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
One new element is the apparent willingness by the North to return to the six-party talks and to end its nuclear weapons development in return for massive aid and access to the international community. It walked away from those talks late last year, repeatedly calling the format dead.
"Our efforts to attain the goal of denuclearising the peninsula remain unchanged," Kim said.
The North's chief source of material to build a bomb has been its Yongbyon facilities. It had agreed to dismantle the site during six-party negotiations but later announced it would put it back into working order, accusing the United States of planning to attack the country.
Reuters