North Korea has promised not to stage a second nuclear test unless it is 'harassed' by the United States, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday.
It quoted diplomatic sources in Seoul as saying the communist state's leader Kim Jong-Il gave the assurance during a meeting in Pyongyang last week with a high-level Chinese delegation led by State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan.
"Kim said during a meeting with Tang that North Korea would not conduct an additional nuclear test unless the US harasses the North," Yonhap quoted one source as saying.
"Kim also promised North Korea would return to the six-way talks in the near future as long as the US promises to lift financial sanctions after the talks reopen.
"Kim's first vice foreign minister Kang Sok-Ju confirmed Kim's remarks in a briefing held after the meeting," the source said. Officials at South Korea's unification ministry told AFP they had no related information on the report.
On Friday Yonhap quoted a diplomatic source in Beijing as saying Kim had told his visitors there would be no additional nuclear test.
Tang, the first foreign official to meet Kim since North Korea sparked world outrage and UN sanctions with its first atomic test on October 9, said in Beijing on Friday his trip had not been a waste of time.
"Fortunately my visit this time has not been in vain," Tang told visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing also reported some positive elements from the meeting, saying the prospect of quickly resuming the stalled six-party talks on the North's nuclear program had been discussed.
North Korea agreed at the talks in September 2005 to scrap its nuclear programmes in exchange for energy aid and security benefits.
But it boycotted the forum two months later in protest at US attempts to curb its access to overseas banks.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso was quoted as saying Friday his country has information that Kim promised Tang there would not be another test. A South Korean newspaper said the same day that Kim had expressed regret about the test and willingness to return to the disarmament talks if the US eases its pressure.
In Moscow, Rice cast doubt Saturday on Kim's reported apology and said his country wanted an "escalation of tensions."
"I don't know whether or not Kim Jong-Il said any such thing," Rice told journalists accompanying her on a flight from Beijing to Moscow.
"But the Chinese, in a fairly thorough briefing about the talks, said nothing about such an apology for having launched a test," she added.