The UN's chief nuclear monitor Mr Mohamed ElBaradei said today his agency has received no confirmation of North Korean claims that it has nuclear weapons.
"The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) is not a participant in the current series of talks involving the DPRK (North Korea)," IAEA chief Mr ElBaradei said in a statement issued in Vienna.
"We have not received any official report concerning nuclear weapons capacity.
"If the DPRK were to make such a declaration that would clearly be a setback for international efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons," Mr ElBaradei said.
He said he still hoped that an agreement can be reached for North Korea to "come back to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and that the IAEA will be able to resume its inspections to ensure the peaceful nature of all nuclear activities there."
The US said today it would take a "good, hard look" at North Korea's claims about its nuclear weapons to separate "bluster" from fact, after crisis talks wrapped up in Beijing.
A day after rumors, reports and leaks on the talks sped throughWashington, senior officials put on a calm front - stressing thatthey still favored a diplomatic solution to the drama over theStalinist state's nuclear aspirations.
All agreed that North Korea told the US that it had nuclear weapons at the talks in Beijing, but a senior official here said that reports on US television networks that Pyongyang had threatened to "test" the weapons were too simplistic.