"If the North Koreans have come to the conclusion they want to wait for the result of the election, fine, let them do so, Deputy US Secretary of State Richard Armitage said.

But he cautioned North Korea against assuming it would get a better deal in return for ending its nuclear weapons drive after the November 2 presidential elections, in which President George W. Bush is being challenged by Democratic Senator John Kerry.

Bush favours multilateral talks to resolving the nuclear question while Kerry prefers direct talks with the Stalinist regime.

"If North Koreans have come to the conclusion they want to wait to see if they can get a better deal, that is a big miscalculation for them," Armitage told reporters after testifying in the House of Representatives on the upcoming Afghanistan presidential polls.

Three rounds of six-party talks to end the nuclear crisis in the Korean peninsula had been held so far among the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and host China.

But North Korea has refused to attend the fourth, scheduled for this month, blaming both US "hostile" policy and secret nuclear experiments in South Korea.

Some reports said Pyongyang wanted to wait for the outcome of the US elections.

US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton had warned Tuesday that North Korea might have to be brought back to the UN Security Council if it refused participation in the talks.

"I think it would be fair to say that if, at some point, North Korea continues to stonewall, then I think the Security Council is the next logical step," Bolton said.

North Korea was referred to the Security Council early last year after it withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and expelled International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors following Washington's charge that it was involved in nuclear weapons activities.

The council made no decision on the issue.

Armitage said Tuesday that the United States would first discuss with the other parties in the six-party process before deciding on the "next step" if North Korea was not interested in negotiating.

The Security Council was "an option," he said, adding however that both China and Russia could use their influence to prod North Korea to remain engaged.

"The Chinese friends are not without influence, the Russian friends, even South Korean and Japanese friends," he said.

Armitage said President Bush was "very patient" on resolving the North Korean issue and stressed that the six-party process was still key to any effective resolution to the crisis.

"They are still important, they are important today, they will be important November 3," he said, adding that other participants in the discussions had very similar views about the need for denuclearization in the Korean peninsula and "that is a good basis to move forward."

The standoff over North Korea's nuclear ambitions flared in October 2002 when Washington accused Pyongyang of operating a nuclear weapons program based on enriched uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement.

Pyongyang has denied running the uranium-based program but has restarted its plutonium program.

A North Korean minister said this week Pyongyang had turned plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into weapons to serve as a deterrent against a possible nuclear strike by the United States.

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