SEOUL - NORTH Korea refused on Tuesday to give up its nuclear weapons until after the US alters its 'hostile policy' toward the regime and proves it does not pose an atomic threat to the wartime rival.

The cryptic statement from North Korea's Foreign Ministry is the first to lay out North Korea's nuclear stance since the last round of international talks on disarming the North in December.

Analysts say the statement - issued a week before President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration - also sends a strong signal that Pyongyang is keen to forge diplomatic relations with the next US administration.

Stalinist North Korea, one of the world's most isolated countries, has never had diplomatic ties with Washington, which sent troops to back South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War. Relations warmed under President Bill Clinton but went into a deep freeze when President George W. Bush took office with sharp words for the North.

Eight years later, Pyongyang appears eager to make amends, refraining from its customary New Year's Day diatribe against the US and reportedly offering to send an envoy to Mr Obama's Jan 20 inauguration.

In Tuesday's statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's Foreign Ministry reiterated its commitment to a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. But it said Washington cannot demand that Pyongyang bare its nuclear arsenal without revealing, and removing, its own alleged nuclear weapons in South Korea.

The US military has some 28,000 troops in the South and holds regular war games with South Korean troops, exercises the North denounces as proof of US aggression.

'We would never show our nuclear weapons first - even in 100 years - unless the US hostile policy and nuclear threat to North Korea are terminated,' said the statement, monitored in Seoul.

But the ministry also suggested that a change in policy could convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions.

'We won't need atomic weapons when US nuclear threats are removed, and the US nuclear umbrella over South Korea is gone,' the statement said.

Seoul and Washington deny having a secret atomic arsenal. 'We don't have nuclear weapons,' South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said late on Tuesday.

Regional powers have been trying for years to rid North Korea - which tested a nuclear bomb in 2006 - of its weapons.

The impoverished North agreed in 2007 to a six-nation pact promising aid in exchange for disarmament. However, the process has been stalled for months because of a standoff with Washington over how to verify Pyongyang's past nuclear activities.

North Korea said verification must take place at the last stage of the disarmament process - not the second of three phases as the U.S. wants. And it said Washington must reveal its arsenal in South Korea at the same time.

'It is necessary to simultaneously verify the whole Korean peninsula,' the statement said.

But the statement is less about nuclear weapons than it is about diplomacy, said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University.

'Ahead of Obama's inauguration, North Korea is strongly presenting its position that relations with the US must be normalized before there can be any progress on the nuclear issue,' he said.

'North Korea wants to make it clear that the point is the relations with the U.S., not its nuclear weapons.'

Mr Obama has said he is open to direct talks and would be willing to meet with autocratic North Korean leader Kim Jong Il if it helps push the de-nuclearisation process forward.

North Korea's statement came as South Korea prepared to send a team of nuclear experts to the North in Seoul's highest-level visit since conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in February 2008 pledging to get tough on Pyongyang.

A six-member team of experts led by Seoul's No. 2 envoy to the North Korea disarmament talks, Hwang Joon-kook, will examine unused fuel rods at the country's main reprocessing plant, South Korea's Foreign Ministry said.

North Korea has some 14,000 unused fuel rods, and Seoul has said it would consider buying them if they can be adapted for use in its power-generating nuclear reactors. The North also has some 8,000 spent fuel rods, which could be used to harvest weapons-grade plutonium for nuclear bombs if reprocessed.

Pyongyang agreed during international disarmament talks in December to export its unused fuel rods. -- AP