The US is ready for a dialogue with North Korea, but only within the six-party talks, said on Sunday the US president’s special representative for North Korea Stephen Bosworth by the results of three-day consultations here with representatives of the Seoul government.

Calling North Korean statements on implementing a programme for uranium enrichment as provoking concern, he noted at the same time that there is nothing surprising about this. The American envoy emphasised that that was not the first and evidently not the last statement by Pyongyang on a programme for uranium enrichment.

Despite the latest conciliatory gestures by Pyongyang, addressed to the international community, in Bosworth’s opinion, Washington does not see any fundamental shifts in the protracted confrontation on the North Korean nuclear problem. All the latest actions by Pyongyang do not indicate progress in denuclearising the Korean Peninsula.

The US maintains a stiff position towards North Korea, said an unidentified diplomatic source in Seoul, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency. “An opinion prevails in Washington that all the latest actions by Pyongyang are not connected with progress in denuclearising the Korean Peninsula,” the source underlined.