The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will not return to six-party talks aimed to resolve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula unless the United States makes an apology for calling Pyongyang an "outpost of tyranny," a DPRK's envoy to the United Nations said early Friday.

"In order to reopen the talks, there should be the right justification and conditions," Han Song-ryol, deputy chief of the DPRK's mission to the United Nations, said in a telephone interview with a Yonhap correspondent in New York. "That is a clear apology from the US for the 'outpost of tyranny' remarks."

"The US can make its own choice on how to make an apology," said Han.

Han referred to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's description of the DPRK as "outpost of tyranny" in her Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year. She has rejected repeated demands from Pyongyang for an apology, saying she spoke the "truth."

In her recent Asian tour, Rice called the DPRK a "sovereign state" for the first time, which was viewed as an apparent attempt to placate the DPRK.

In the telephone interview, Han said "Pyongyang's judgment is that (the sovereign state remarks) cannot be taken as being equivalent to an apology."

Han also made some remarks on a statement of the DPRK's Foreign Ministry which demanded that the six-party forum should be transformed into arms reduction talks.

"Now that the DPRK has become a fully fledged nuclear-armed state, the six-party talks should serve as disarmament talks where the participating countries negotiate the issue on an equal footing," a DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement on Thursday.

Han said the statement was meant to stress that the latest nuclear crisis stems from US nuclear threats against the DPRK and therefore removing those threats is a fundamental solution to the issue, according to Yonhap.

Han further criticized the United States for its deployment of nuclear weapons either in the US territory or in US alien bases in the world that can attack the DPRK.

He also made it clear that his country wants to discuss transforming the nuclear forum into disarmament talks if the six-party talks reopens, saying such demand is not a precondition for resuming the multilateral talks.

"It depends on the US whether the six-party talks resume or not," the envoy said. "But, I don't think the US will drop its hostile policy (toward Pyongyang)."

The six-party talks have been stalled since last September after three rounds of talks were held among China, the DPRK, the United States, Russia, South Korea and Japan.

The fourth round of such talks failed to be convened last September as the DPRK refused to attend the talks, citing US hostile policy toward Pyongyang.