North Korea has agreed to multilateral talks about its suspected development of nuclear weapons, a South Korean spokesman said today.

THE Bush administration says it will seek a diplomatic solution to the stand-off over North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons programmes. But the communist nation’s leaders routinely accuse Washington of plotting their downfall.

A TOP US envoy ended a diplomatic shuttle through Asia on Sunday, reporting no new initiative to defuse a nuclear crisis with isolated North Korea amid signs that Washington wants to talk, but only on its own terms.

North Korea said today that it was not interested in dialogue with the US because of what it described as Washington’s ‘‘vicious hostile policy’’.