Nov 2, 2009, 8:40 GMT
Seoul - North Korea's Foreign Ministry on Monday told the United States to decide whether it wants bilateral talks on the country's atomic programme, with a South Korean media report saying the Stalinist regime had restored its nuclear reprocessing plant.
If Washington remained unwilling, the Stalinist state would 'go its own way,' a Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
'As we have shown generosity and expressed a position that we can have multilateral negotiations after talks with the US, it is time for the US to make a decision,' the spokesman said.
North Korea linked its return to the six-party talks, also including South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the US, which it unilaterally quit in April, with the progress of direct negotiations with Washington.
The US remains cautious on bilateral talks and urges North Korea to return to the six-party talks, which were abandoned by Pyongyang following international criticism of its long-range missile launches.
North Korea appears to have fully restored its Yongbyon nuclear facility, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on Monday citing government officials. The plant is capable of making plutonium for weapons from used fuel rods.
Significant parts of North Korea's atomic installations were dismantled as part of a treaty in February 2007 with the US, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan.
North Korea announced a month ago that it was turning its plutonium stock in to new nuclear weapons.
The country conducted its second nuclear test in May.
The North's deputy nuclear envoy, Ri Gun, met with US officials during a week-long trip to the United States in late October.
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