The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) blamed the United States Friday for delaying the six-party talks, urging the US to fully consider DPRK's demands toresume the talks.

A DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman rebutted a US claim that the present deadlock of six-party talks is due to the DPRK's failure to respond saying that "the six-party talks could not be resumed because its groundwork was destroyed by the US and because South Korea's nuclear issue surfaced," said the spokesman.

"The US is talking about the resumption of the talks but is paying no heed to the call of the DPRK for restoring that groundwork," the spokesman added.

The spokesman asked the US whether it is ready to drop its hostile policy towards Pyongyang and participate in instituting the "reward for freeze" policy and treat the South Korea nuclear issue as a priority in the talks.

"The DPRK proposed the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsulain mid-1980s and also proposed and procured the six-party talks. So the DPRK is responsible for the talks," the spokesman said.

"The DPRK is approaching the talks strictly in its own interests. In other words, it will attend the talks if they prove helpful to it," he added.

Up to June this year, three rounds of the six-party talks havebeen held in China in an attempt to resolve the nuclear confrontation between the DPRK and the United States. The fourth round scheduled for September failed to take place.

Pyongyang has said that the US turning down the proposal of "reward for freeze" advanced by the DPRK and applying "double standards" make the fourth round of the six-party talks abortive.

Source: Xinhua