Japan and South Korea told North Korea Thursday it should return unconditionally to nuclear disarmament talks, a day after Pyongyang reportedly restated its demands for sanctions to be lifted first.

International efforts have intensified to revive the talks, which the North quit last April following international criticism of its ballistic missile launch.

"The two shared the view that North Korea should first return to six-party talks and there should be practical progress in denuclearisation," South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan said after talks with his Japanese counterpart Katsuya Okada.

Pyongyang staged its second atomic weapons test in May 2009 and said it had restarted production of weapons-grade plutonium.

The North's nuclear negotiators, meeting Chinese counterparts in Beijing Wednesday, reiterated demands for UN sanctions to be lifted before the nuclear talks resume, according to South Korean media reports.

They also reportedly restated another precondition: that the United States agree to start talks about a formal peace treaty.

The 1950-53 Korean war ended only in an armistice. The North says it developed its atomic arsenal to deter US aggression and there must be a formal peace pact before it considers scrapping it.

China, which hosts the six-party forum, was said to have stressed that the North should first return to dialogue and ease its tough conditions.

As part of the diplomatic drive, China sent senior communist party official Wang Jiarui to North Korea Saturday to try to coax it back to the forum which also groups South Korea, the United States, Russia and Japan.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon's top political adviser Lynn Pascoe is making a four-day visit to the North expected to focus on both nuclear matters and humanitarian aid.

South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek said separately the North must work towards scrapping its nuclear programmes if there is to be lasting peace on the peninsula.

"North Korea's proposal for a peace treaty is not a positive signal geared toward making progress in denuclearisation," Hyun told a forum.

"If we fail to create a breakthrough in resolving the North Korean nuclear conundrum in the near future, the political situation on the Korean peninsula will become extremely unstable," Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying.

Share This Article With Planet Earth