North Korea 'to return to talks'

North Korea says it is willing to return to six-party international talks on its nuclear weapons programme, state media has reported.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il made the announcement to Chinese Premier Wen JiabaoWen Jiabao, who is visiting Pyongyang, said North Korea's KCNA news agency.

But Pyongyang said the return would be dependent on the progress of its planned bilateral talks with the US.

The US says it remains ready to engage bilaterally with North Korea.

A US State Department spokesman said the aim for Washington was to convince Pyongyang to take the path to complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

The spokesman said this remained the core objective, and that the multi-party process was the best mechanism for achieving that.

North Korea pulled out of the Chinese-hosted six-party talks earlier this year.

A South Korean government source says that the North is in the final stages of restoring facilities at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.

"We have obtained indications that point to restoration work being in the final stages," Reuters news agency quoted the source as saying.

"The work to restore nuclear facilities at Yongbyon has been ongoing since early this year."

'Vital consensus'

"The hostile relations between the DPRK [North Korea] and the United States should be converted into peaceful ties through the bilateral talks without fail," KCNA quoted Mr Kim as saying.

"We expressed our readiness to hold multilateral talks, depending on the outcome of the DPRK-US talks."

Mr Kim was quoted as saying that North Korea's "efforts to attain the goal of denuclearising the peninsula remain unchanged".

The move followed strong international criticism over its testing of long-range missiles.

Mr Wen is on the second day of a three-day trip to North Korea which China says is to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the countries.

But regional neighbours had hoped the visit would also help restart the stalled nuclear talks.

China's state media agency, Xinhua, said Mr Wen and Mr Kim had "reached vital consensus on realising the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula".

'Friendly'

The importance of Mr Wen's visit was underlined when he was met on arrival on Sunday by Mr Kim.

On Sunday the two countries signed a series of co-operation deals, Chinese state media reported.

Mr Kim accompanied Mr Wen to a Korean opera, Xinhua said, where the two held "friendly talks".

Mr Wen is being accompanied on his visit by China's foreign minister.

China is North Korea's biggest trading partner and is the country which holds the greatest sway over the communist regime.

North Korea withdrew from the six party talks - which also involve China, the US, Japan, Russia and South Korea - in April, and conducted its second nuclear test in May, raising regional tensions.

But in recent weeks it has issued more conciliatory statements.