(LEAD) N. Korea 'not eager' to rejoin nuclear talks: U.N. envoy

(ATTN: UPDATES with press conference by envoy throughout)
BEIJING, Feb. 12 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is not eager to rejoin stalled
multilateral talks on its nuclear arms programs but has also not ruled them out,
a U.N. special envoy said after returning from the communist state.

North Korea remains under U.N. sanctions that toughened after it went ahead with
its second nuclear test in May last year. The country says one of the conditions
for it to return to the six-party talks is the lifting of the sanctions.
"Certainly, they're not happy with the sanctions. They're certainly not eager,
not ruling out, but not eager to return to six-party talks," Lynn Pascoe, U.N.
undersecretary-general for political affairs, told a press conference in Beijing.
Pascoe, who delivered U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's personal verbal
message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il during his four-day trip, said earlier
in the day while in Pyongyang that he was "very satisfied" with his meetings
there.
The visit by Pascoe coincided with a trip to Beijing by North Korea's chief
nuclear envoy to the six-party talks, which have not been held since late 2008.
They group the divided Koreas, the U.S., Japan, Russia and host China.
Pascoe is the highest-ranking U.N. diplomat to visit North Korea. The last
high-level trip by a U.N. official to North Korea took place in 2004.
On Thursday, Kim Kye-gwan, the North's representative to the six-party
negotiations, said he held "in-depth" discussions on resuming the talks in his
meetings with Chinese officials.
"We exchanged important opinions with China on the matters of a peace treaty
between the two Koreas and the resumption of the six-party talks," he told
reporters in Beijing. North Korea says talks aimed at replacing the 1950-53
Korean War truce with a peace treaty should also be launched if it is to rejoin
the six-party dialogue.
Pascoe met with Kim Yong-nam, North Korea's nominal head of state, during his
trip, China's official Xinhua news agency reported earlier in the day from
Pyongyang.
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