Japan's Asahi Shimbun daily on Sunday said the North began firing up its Yongbyon nuclear complex again in July, adding a US spy satellite spotted vapor from its boiler.

"It looks like an inaccurate news report even though I cannot verify it because it belongs to intelligence," an unnamed Seoul government official told Yonhap in response to the Asahi report.

Asahi quoted unnamed diplomatic sources as saying the North's alleged reactivation of the reactor had been discussed during the latest six-way talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear ambitions.

"I understand such an issue was never raised at the fourth round of (six-way) talks," the Seoul official told Yonhap.

The nuclear talks -- between the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan -- resumed in Beijing last month. The talks are to reopen in the final week of August.

The North shut down the nuclear reactor 90 kilometers (50 miles) north of Pyongyang in April to reprocess spent fuel rods, a move which produces weapons grade plutonium. In May, it said it had completed reprocessing them.

The North declared in February it had nuclear bombs.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.