U.S. says it won’t return to bilateral nuclear talks

WASHINGTON – Arguing it was burned before in one-on-one talks with North Korea, the United States said Friday it had no interest in resuming direct discussions on Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

The White House said it continued to support a six-nation process designed to negotiate the elimination of the communist country’s nuclear armaments.

But with that process stalled, administration officials were beginning to discuss the possibility of referring the issue to the U.N. Security Council as an alternate approach. The objective there would be to impose international sanctions to persuade Kim Jong Il to abandon his weapons program.

Han Sung Ryol, a senior North Korean diplomat at the United Nations, urged a direct dialogue with the United States in an interview with a South Korean newspaper.