'US seeks two-month nuclear deadline for NKorea'

TOKYO: The United States demanded in deadlocked talks that North Korea take steps to give up nuclear weapons within two months including freezing a reactor, a Japanese press report said on Wednesday.

Kyodo News said the United States made the demands during six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear program that ended in stalemate last week in Beijing.

The US side demanded that North Korea take "concrete initial steps" to denuclearisation within between one and a half and two months, the news agency said, citing anonymous diplomatic sources in Beijing.

The steps included a freeze on North Korea's Yongbyon reactor and allowing a return of inspectors from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, it said.

But North Korea, emboldened by its October nuclear test, demanded that the United States first lift economic sanctions on a Pyongyang-linked bank in Macau accused of laundering and counterfeiting money.

North Korea last year withdrew from six-way talks -- which include China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States -- in response to the sanctions, which blacklisted millions of dollars in the impoverished state's funds.

North Korea returned to the talks last week after a 13-month hiatus during which it tested its atom bomb.