North Korea says Japan not welcome at nuclear talks

SEOUL, Nov 4 (Reuters) North Korea today said Japan should not bother to attend six-country nuclear talks because Tokyo is refusing to recognise the reclusive communist country as a nuclear weapons state.

''There is no need for Japan to participate in (the talks) as a local delegate because it is no more than a state of the US and it is enough for Tokyo just to be informed of the results of the talks by Washington,'' North Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement today.

Japan's refusal to accept the North as a nuclear weapons state when the talks resume later this year proved they were ''political imbeciles incapable of judging the trend of the situation'', said the statement carried by the North's official Korea Central News Agency.

North Korea agreed on Tuesday to return to the talks involving the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the United States after snubbing them for a year in protest over a US crackdown on its international finances.

North Korea conducted its first nuclear test on October 9 and is now referring to itself as ''a responsible nuclear weapons state.'' ''It is unacceptable that North Korea returns to the six-party talks on the premise that it has become a nuclear weapons state,'' Noriyuki Shikata, a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said today.

AID AND SECURITY A South Korean government official said it was ''preposterous'' to assert the goal of the talks has changed since an agreement in principle was reached in September 2005, under which North Korea would dismantle its nuclear programmes in exchange for aid and security guarantees.

But some analysts said Pyongyang's nuclear test and agreement to return to the talks three weeks later likely marked the beginning of North Korea's pursuit to turn the six-way talks into bilateral arms reduction negotiations with the United States.

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