North Korea has agreed to return to stalled six-country talks on its nuclear weapons programmes this month, the official KCNA news agency said on Saturday. North Korea had been boycotting the talks -- which involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States -- since a third inconclusive round in Beijing in June last year, according to Reuters. KCNA said Pyongyang decided to reopen the talks after North Korea's vice-minister of foreign affairs, Kim Kye-gwan, held talks with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill in Beijing on Saturday. "Both sides agreed to open the fourth round of the six-party talks in the week which begins on July 25, 2005," KCNA said. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told a South Korean envoy in June that the North was ready to return to the talks this month if Washington showed respect. Other North Korean officials had said that included apologising for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice describing the North as an "outpost of tyranny". --More 1752 Local Time 1452 GMT
