NORTH KOREA yesterday agreed to account for and disable all its nuclear programmes by the end of the year, the chief US negotiator said — the first time the communist country has offered a timeline to end its secretive atomic programme.

North Korea will not stop its nuclear activity unless its funds held in a Macau bank are fully released, the country’s chief nuclear envoy said today.

North Korea has threatened to test a nuclear weapon unless Washington accepts Pyongyang’s conditions for a freeze on its atomic programme, jeopardising disarmament talks, a senior US official said in Beijing.

The US offered today to give energy aid and a security guarantee to North Korea if the secretive Stalinist state dismantles its nuclear programme.

North Korea is willing to abandon efforts to develop nuclear weapons if the United States ends its “hostile policy” toward Pyongyang and agrees its demand for compensation, the North’s envoy said.