Australian envoy to visit N Korea

The nuclear dispute has been raging for 22 months

Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is due to visit North Korea on Tuesday to try to break the deadlock over its nuclear weapons programme.

Months of intermittent talks between North Korea, its neighbours and the US have produced little progress.

Australia, close to the US and which has diplomatic ties with North Korea, hopes to move the process forward.

North Korea says it is not getting the commitments it needs to give up its nuclear weapons development programme.

Mr Downer is due to hold two days of talks in Pyongyang with senior officials although he will not meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

Message

The BBC's Charles Scanlon in Seoul says Australia would be well-placed to deliver a message on behalf of Washington.

Mr Downer spoke to US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice last week and said North Korea would receive economic inducements if it agreed to dismantle its nuclear weapons programmes.

But he gave few details and it is not clear if the proposal goes further than one already offered by the US and rejected by North Korea.

North Korea has offered a nuclear freeze in return for economic aid, but continues to deny the existence of a second secret nuclear weapons programme which Washington says has been uncovered by intelligence.

On Monday, North Korea said it would not attend a working meeting ahead of the next round of six-party talks on its controversial nuclear programme.

In a statement it said the US was "not interested in making the dialogue fruitful".

The working group was due to meet later this month in New York.

Nuclear freeze

At the last six-party talks in June - which included South Korea, China, Japan and Russia as well as the US and North Korea - the country offered to freeze its nuclear programme in exchange for fuel aid and talks on lifting US sanctions.

It said the freeze would be a step towards the eventual dismantling of the programme.

But the US wants the North to go further, and disclose all its nuclear activities and allow outside monitors into the country.

The nuclear dispute flared up in October 2002, when US officials accused North Korea of running a secret nuclear programme in violation of international agreements.

Since then there have been a series of talks in an effort to resolve the crisis, but a deal has yet to be reached.

"It is clear that there would be nothing to expect, even if the DPRK (North Korea) sits at the negotiating table with the US under the present situation," an unnamed North Korean spokesman told state news agency KCNA.

The statement described Washington's stand as "unreasonable", and insisted that the US was reserving the right to use force to disarm North Korea.

"A nuclear freeze is possible... only when the situation develops in the direction of the US dropping hostile acts against the DPRK. On the contrary, these acts are escalating," the North Korean statement said.