'Nuclear test means now we can talk'

North Korea is prepared to return to six-country talks on its nuclear weapons programme at any time now that it has "gained a defensive position" with a nuclear test, a senior envoy of the communist state said yesterday.

But Kim Kye-gwan told reporters in Beijing that North Korea still had differences to narrow with the US, which has squeezed Pyongyang's external sources of financing for more than a year.

North Korea agreed to return to the six-party talks, which it had boycotted for a year, after its October 9 nuclear test triggered UN-backed sanctions.

"Because after the nuclear test, we have gained a defensive position against those who are trying to suppress us. Now we are in a very confident position and so we are ready to come back to the talks any time," Mr Kim told reporters.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Mr Kim as saying: "We have many issues in dispute (with the US). We have to narrow them to some extent."

China, which backed UN sanctions punishing Pyongyang for the nuclear test, reiterated its opposition to a nuclear North Korea yesterday.

"China resolutely opposes the proliferation of nuclear weapons and stands for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula," Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu told a news conference when asked to comment on Mr Kim's remarks.

"This stance has been consistent, firm and clear."

The six-party talks bring together the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia.

Envoys from all countries except Russia are in Beijing for preparatory discussions. Asked why the Russian envoy was not in Beijing, Jiang said merely that she had not heard he was coming. She did not elaborate.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill met Mr Kim and his Chinese counterpart yesterday in bilateral and trilateral meetings, Ms Jiang said.

"I am here because of the kind invitation of the US Assistant Secretary of State Mr Hill," Mr Kim said before the meetings. "He is going to introduce me to his dancing rhythm."

Mr Hill told reporters on arrival on Monday that he anticipated the six-party talks "will get going at some point very soon".

North Korea agreed to return to the talks after Washington said it was willing to address its concerns about financial restrictions, tightened in September last year when US regulators named a Macau bank as a conduit for illicit North Korean cash from currency counterfeiting and drug trafficking.