It urged North Korea instead to return to six-nation negotiations aimed at ending the Stalinist state's nuclear weapons drive.

"Well, I don't think the issue here is really direct talks between the United States and North Korea. We have direct talks with the North Koreans in the context of the six-party talks," acting State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.

He was responding to a North Korean invitation Thursday to Christopher Hill, the head of the US delegation to the six-party talks, to go to Pyongyang in an apparent bid to jump start the stalled negotiations.

North Korea's foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday that Hill, a US assistant secretary of state, would be welcome in Pyongyang if Washington sincerely wanted to uphold a joint statement agreed last September at the multilateral talks.

"If the US has a true political intention to implement the joint statement we kindly invite once again the head of the US side's delegation to the talks to visit Pyongyang and directly explain it to us," the North Korean spokesman told the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

North Korea, meeting with six-party delegates from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States, agreed to dismantle its nuclear program in September in return for security guarantees, diplomatic concessions and energy aid.

But in November it launched a boycott of the talks after Washington imposed financial sanctions aimed at curbing Pyongyang's alleged US dollar counterfeiting and money laundering activities.

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