The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will return to the six-party talks on the nuclear issue of the Korean peninsula any time if the US takes a trustworthy and sincere attitude and moves to provide conditions and justification for the resumption of talks, the DPRK's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

In a lengthy statement, the Foreign Ministry cited what it claims are concrete facts to prove that the US is wholly to blame for suspension of the talks.

It said the second-term Bush administration continues the policy of not wanting to co-exist with the DPRK and of aiming to bring down the system chosen by the Koreans themselves. This eliminates any justification for the DPRK to participate in the six-party talks, the statement said.

Bush, instead of retracting his remarks listing the DPRK as part of "an axis of evil," termed the DPRK government an "outpost of tyranny", singling it out as an object to be removed, it said.

The DPRK demanded that the US should apologize for the remarks, withdraw them, renounce its hostile policy aimed at a regime change in the DPRK and clarify its political willingness to co-exist with the DPRK in peace and show it in practice.

It is imperative for the US to rebuild the groundwork of the six-party talks and create the conditions and atmosphere for their resumption as quickly as possible, said the statement.

While urging the US to a switchover in its policy towards it, the statement said the DPRK's principled stand to achieve the goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and seek a negotiated peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue remains unchanged.

By the end of June 2004, three rounds of six-party talks, which brought together China, the United States, the DPRK, South Korea, Russia and Japan, had been held in Beijing through the brokerage of the Chinese government. The talks are aimed at defusing tension over the nuclear issue of the Korean peninsula.

Pyongyang refused to attend the fourth round scheduled for last September citing hostile US policy.