Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso on Tuesday rejected North Korea's demand that the United States lift financial sanctions in return for its return to multilateral nuclear disarmament talks.
"The US financial sanctions are a totally different thing from the six-party talks. The US sanctions are based on its domestic laws which have nothing to do with the six-way talks," Aso told reporters.
According to reports, notably from a South Korean legislator Monday, North Korea is willing to return to the talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia if the United States promises to lift a freeze on its accounts in a Macau bank.
The lawmaker, Choi Sung of the ruling Uri Party, said in a statement he had held talks Sunday night in Beijing with a "key North Korean official" whom he declined to identify.
The official also reportedly said any decision by the North to hold a second nuclear weapons test depended on Washington's attitude.
The UN Security Council voted unanimously to slap Pyongyang with a range of financial, trade and military restrictions after its October 9 atom bomb test, and urged the North to return to six-party talks.
North Korea agreed at the six-way talks in September 2005 to scrap its nuclear programmes in exchange for energy and other economic aid and security guarantees.
But it boycotted the forum two months later in protest at US action to freeze its accounts totalling 24 million dollars in Banco Delta Asia (BDA).