"The United States has still not decided on lifting the sanctions and this shows that they are not ready to end hostile policies towards North Korea," the ambassador, Kim An Dzhe, told ITAR-TASS news agency.

"It's not certain that in a situation of sanctions we can renounce our nuclear potential," he continued.

Six-nation talks involving China, Japan, Russia, the United States, as well as North and South Korea, started in 2003 but have been repeatedly suspended and have failed to yield concrete results.

The United States froze Pyongyang's bank accounts in Macau in 2005, saying this was a law enforcement issue aimed at curbing the North's counterfeiting of dollars and was unrelated to the six-party talks.

The Stalinist regime stunned the world last October when it tested a nuclear device for the first time, triggering global condemnation and UN sanctions, but also adding urgency to efforts to resume stalled disarmament talks.

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