China has proposed the resumption of six-party nuclear disarmament talks in February when DPRK leader Kim Jong-Il visited Beijing this week, a South Korean newspaper says.

The JoongAng newspaper quoted a diplomatic source as saying China had asked DPRK to return to the six-party forum during the second week of February.

Prospects for new six-party talks on ending DPRK's nuclear weapons drive heightened this week after Kim met Chinese President Hu Jintao and agreed to push for "a negotiated peaceful solution to the issue".

South Korean officials, however, believe the resumption of talks remains uncertain due to a standoff over US financial sanctions on DPRK for alleged counterfeiting and money laundering activities, the newspaper said.

DPRK has said it would only return to the six-party talks involving the United States, China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia if Washington lifted the sanctions.

Meanwhile, a senior US State Department official told Japan's Kyodo news agency: "I think that there was a suggestion. The Chinese had talked about early February."

"We reaffirm the fact that we're ready to go to Beijing in early February, but there's not yet agreement," the unnamed official was quoted as saying.

At talks this week in Washington, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her South Korean counterpart Ban Ki-Moon called for a resumption in talks to break the impasse over the three-year-old crisis.

Rice said Pyongyang had received a clear message from the international community on the need for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

"We both urge the North Koreans to come back to the talks without conditions, because North Korea also is being told by the international community that it has to be a Korean peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons and that North Korea must dismantle its nuclear programs," Rice said.

In September, DPRK agreed in principle to give up its nuclear weapons program in return for a US security guarantee and other economic and diplomatic benefits. But the last round of six-way talks ended in stalemate in November.

The United States has blacklisted eight DPRK companies, accusing Pyongyang of manufacturing counterfeit US dollar bills and using a Macau bank as a front for money-laundering.

The US Treasury on Friday urged Asia to take defensive measures against DPRK's illicit activities, after Daniel Glaser, the deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, visited Hong Kong and Macau.

Glaser discussed with officials in the southern Chinese territories how to cooperate on controls against money laundering and terrorist financing, a Treasury statement said.

(Source: China Daily/AFP)