Pyongyang reportedly intends to give Washington up to three months to lift financial sanctions imposed last year and start direct talks.
LONDON: North Korea is likely to delay a nuclear bomb test until at least year's end to see if the United States will lift sanctions and begin talks, Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported citing Russian officials in Pyongyang.
The paper cited unidentified Russian military officials as saying they had received information Pyongyang intended to give Washington up to three months to lift financial sanctions imposed last year and start direct talks.
"If Americans don't start (a) bilateral dialogue with Pyongyang and lift sanctions, then Kim Jong-Il is expected to give the order to carry on with the test, most likely in the second half of December or early January," one said.
North Korea announced on Tuesday that it planned to test a bomb but did not give a date, triggering speculation that it could be as early as this weekend.
The shock announcement led to a UN Security Council statement on Friday urging Pyongyang, which last year proclaimed itself a nuclear power, to renounce its intention and return to six-nation talks it has boycotted since last November.
Russian analysts told the Sunday Telegraph that, having built up tensions, the regime was likely now to fall silent.
"It needs to carefully monitor the situation, watch the reaction of the rest of the world and weigh all the pros and cons again," one analyst was quoted as saying.
"I would say that carrying out a nuclear test any time soon is not to North Korea's advantage."
In the same report, the paper also said the weapon North Korea intended to detonate had a 20-kiloton yield, similar to the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki in Japan at the end of World War II in 1945.
The military experts cited by the weekly British newspaper said the bomb was about 10 feet long and weighed around four tons, but was too big to fit onto any missile the regime currently possesses.
Pyongyang has boycotted six-party talks -- grouping North and South Korea, Japan, Russia, China and the United States -- since November in protest at US sanctions on a Macau bank accused of laundering funds for the regime.
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