"If Christopher Hill is willing to visit my country with an intention of resolving the nuclear issue, then we would always welcome him," North Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su-Hon told reporters, including China's Xinhua news agency.

"There will be no condition if he is willing to come to my country with a view to resolving the nuclear issue and other issues of his concern," he said at the North Korean mission to the United Nations in New York.

South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young said in a report to parliament on Thursday that Hill was keen to make the trip.

Chung, who traveled to Pyongyang for inter-Korean ministerial talks last week, said he relayed Hill's message to North Korean officials.

Hill led the US team to nuclear disarmament talks -- which also involve North Korea, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea -- whose latest round ended in Beijing earlier this week.

According to South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, Hill wants to make the trip before a new round of six-nation talks begins in early November.

It said the envoy "showed a strong desire to have direct consultations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il" on the nuclear issue.

After two years of six-party negotiations, North Korea on Monday agreed to a statement of principles on abandoning its atomic weapons in return for energy and security guarantees.

The agreement in effect averted the immediate possibility of Washington taking the issue to the UN Security Council.

But on Tuesday the communist nation warned it would not dismantle its nuclear weapons until the United States delivered light-water reactors to allow it to generate power, casting doubt on its commitments.

The United States says the reactors would be discussed only after North Korea abandons its nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner.

Choe repeated Pyongyang's position at the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

"What is most essential at this stage is for the United States to provide light-water reactors to the DPRK (North Korea) as soon as possible," he said.

"There will be no need for the DPRK to keep a single nuclear weapon if the DPRK-US relations are normalized, bilateral confidence is built and the DPRK is not exposed to the US nuclear threat any longer."

Despite the rhetoric, Choe said his government had noticed that the American attitude towards North Korea had changed recently, highlighted by the joint statement in which the US pledged to recognize North Korea's sovereignty.

"This is different from what the United States has been saying (in past years)," he said.

Earlier Friday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said North Korea was seeking a visit from President George W. Bush or other prominent US figures in an effort to improve ties between the two countries.

The nuclear standoff began when the United States accused North Korea in 2002 of breaking a 1994 agreement by running a secret uranium-enrichment programme.

Under the agreement, two light-water reactors were to be supplied in exchange for a freeze on existing nuclear activity.

North Korea responded by throwing out international inspectors and withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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.