SEOUL - SEOUL on Thursday rejected North Korea's fresh demand for verification that all US nuclear weapons have been withdrawn from South Korea, saying there are no such weapons on its territory.

The North made the demand on Tuesday in a foreign ministry statement seen as its first message to the incoming US administration of Barack Obama.

The communist state, which has committed itself to nuclear disarmament under a February 2007 six-nation pact, called for 'free field access' to ensure there are no such weapons in the South.

Washington and Seoul say US atomic weapons were withdrawn from South Korea in 1991.

The South's foreign ministry, in a statement, accused North Korea of 'distorting the substance of the situation.' It called for the North's active cooperation to denuclearise the peninsula.

In its Tuesday statement the communist state also vowed not to give up its nuclear weapons until the United States drops its 'hostile' policy and establishes diplomatic relations.

The Pyongyang statement reaffirmed current policy but came just days before the Obama administration takes power.

'There will be no such case in 100 years' time that we will hand over our nuclear weapons first without the fundamental settlement of the US hostile policy toward Korea and its nuclear threat,' it said.

The 2007 pact calls for the scrapping of the North's nuclear weapons in return for aid, normalised relations with the United States and Japan and a formal peace agreement on the Korean peninsula.

The North is disabling its nuclear plants under the latest phase of the pact. But negotiations have not started on the final phase, which would involve the surrender of weapons and diplomatic ties.

The US says the North must scrap its nuclear weaponry before such ties are forged.

The six-nation disarmament talks group the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan. -- AFP