WASHINGTON, April 25: The United States said on Friday it told North Korea in China-sponsored talks this week that its relations with the world hinge on “verifiably and irreversibly” abandoning its nuclear arms.

Washington also “made clear” to Pyongyang that Japan and South Korea should take part in any future negotiations, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, though he declined to say that this was a condition for such future contacts.

During the talks in Beijing, “we made clear the need and the importance of a de-nuclearized Korean peninsula and the necessity of North Korea verifiably and irreversibly dismantling their nuclear programme,” said Fleischer.

“Their future relations with the outside world hinge on these actions. We also made clear the need for South Korea and Japan to be included in future discussions,” he told reporters.

The United States will withhold public judgment of North Korea’s claim it now has nuclear arms until US envoy James Kelly returns to Washington after consultations in Seoul and Tokyo, said Fleischer.

He added that Washington would give “a good, hard look at what North Korea said to see if it’s consistent with facts, and to see what the implications are, because North Korea has a rather unique way of having discussions.”

“We have said for some time in public that we assume that North Korea has had nuclear weapons — one or two. I can’t say that everything is bluster, but clearly, anytime you deal with the North Koreans, bluster is part of their vocabulary,” the spokesman said.

“We will analyze what we heard and then make determinations about where we go next,” said Fleischer, who said US policy toward North Korea was not “regime change,” which it accomplished in Iraq.—Reuters