N Korean envoy insists US must lift sanctions

North Korea's top nuclear negotiator said yesterday that Washington needs to lift financial sanctions against Pyongyang and drop its hostile attitude before the regime will consider abandoning its nuclear program.

"As long as we need a deterrent we don't have any reason to abandon it [the nuclear program] now," Kim Kye-gwan told reporters after arriving in Beijing for talks set to resume tomorrow.

"The biggest problem is that the United States needs to change its hostile policy against North Korea," he said. "When they change their policy from a hostile stance to one of peaceful coexistence the problem can be resolved."

North Korea walked away from the talks -- which also include China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US -- 13 months ago.

North Korea agreed at the close of the last session of talks in September last year to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and aid.

But Washington imposed financial sanctions against a Macau-based bank on suspicions it was laundering counterfeit money for the North Koreans. Angered by the move, Pyongyang withdrew from the talks two months later.

Kim called the US lifting of financial sanctions against it a "precondition" to moving forward with the negotiations.

"When it comes to the outlook of the six-party talks, it's hard to be optimistic," Kim said. He said that the North's demands were made clear in talks with the US side in Beijing last month.

"The US knew what we wanted when they went back [to Washington], so we have to wait and see what answers the US will bring when the talk begins," Kim said.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited a South Korean embassy official as saying that Kim may have a bilateral meeting later yesterday with his South Korean counterpart, Chun Yung-woo, who was due to arrive in Beijing in the afternoon.

North Korea agreed to return to the negotiating table weeks after conducting its first-ever nuclear weapon test on Oct. 9.