The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Monday reiterated its call for the United States to hold direct talks with it in order to find a solution to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The DPRK could take part in multilateral talks, including the six-party talks, only if Washington held bilateral talks with Pyongyang first, said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, quoted by the official KCNA news agency.

The unnamed spokesman said Ri Gun, chief of the American Bureau of the DPRK Foreign Ministry, contacted with officials of the U.S. State Department recently.

But the contacts were "not preparatory contacts for the DPRK-U.S. talks, so didn't discuss any substantial issue about the direct talks between the two countries," he said.

It was the DPRK's "basic and proper" stand to hold multilateral talks, including the six-party talks, depending on the result of the DPRK-U.S. direct talks, he said.

The first stage of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was to settle the hostile relations between the DPRK and the United States, in a bid to get rid of the source that prompted the DPRK to develop nuclear weapons, he added.

The six-party talks would be nothing but empty talk before the DPRK and the U.S. built faith between each other, he went on to say. If the DPRK-U.S. relations improved, "it would make great progress on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," he predicted.

The spokesman urged the U.S. to make a decision right now, warning "if the U.S. didn't hold talks with the DPRK, it would continue to follow its own road."

Ri Gun visited the U.S. on Oct. 23 to take part in a "Track II" negotiation. During the trip, Ri met with Sung Kim, U.S. special envoy to disarmament talks.

(Xinhua News Agency November 2, 2009)