Pyongyang has told Beijing that, before it returns to nuclear talks, it wants an unspecified amount of Chinese economic assistance, the Sankei Shimbun said, citing a diplomatic source in Washington.

North Korea has also asked China to help push for one-on-one talks between North Korea and the United States, and to take Pyongyang's rather than Washington's side in any six-nation talks, the newspaper said.

If North Korea receives satisfactory answers from China, Pyongyang might announce within the coming week that it has decided to return to six-nation talks, the Sankei said.

North Korea last took part in the talks -- which include the two Koreas, China, Japan, the United States and Russia -- in June last year, boycotting a round in September citing "hostile" US policy.

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday that Washington had used a back-channel at the United Nations in New York to contact North Korean diplomats and urged them to come back to six-party talks.

Pyongyang has sent out a series of defiant statements on its nuclear programme and US officials have expressed fears that it is about to carry out an atomic test.

After declaring in February it had nuclear weapons to defend itself, North Korea said this month it had unloaded 8,000 spent fuel rods from its reactor, allowing it to reprocess weapons-grade plutonium for more nuclear bombs.

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