SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea has demanded bilateral talks with the United States to defuse the tension created by its announcement that it is a nuclear power, the communist state's U.N. envoy said in a South Korean newspaper today.

Han Sung Ryol, a senior diplomat from the U.N. delegation in New York, was the first North Korean official to speak to outside news media since Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry defied the United States and its allies by declaring Thursday it has nuclear weapons.

In the announcement - its first public disclosure that it has the weapons - North Korea said its arsenal is a deterrent against a U.S. invasion, and it does not intend to join six-nation disarmament talks anytime soon. The weapons claim could not be independently verified.

"We will return to the six-nation talks when we see a reason to do so and the conditions are ripe," Han told Seoul's Hankyoreh newspaper in an interview published Friday. "If the United States moves to have direct dialogue with us, we can take that as a signal that the United States is changing its hostile policy toward us."

Han's suggestion came as the 2-year-old standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs plummeted to a new low.

North Korea sees its nuclear programs as a way of ensuring the survival of leader Kim Jong Il's regime. In return for giving up its nuclear ambitions, it seeks massive aid, diplomatic recognition, an end to economic sanctions, and a nonaggression treaty with the United States.

North Korea's long-running strategy has been to try to engage the United States in bilateral talks, believing such meetings would boost the isolated country's international status and help it win bigger concessions.

In the current six-nation talks, North Korea has increasingly found itself surrounded by countries, including allies China and Russia, who are critical of its nuclear ambitions. Since 2003, the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia have held three rounds of talks in Beijing, but no significant progress has been made.

The United States has refused to engage in bilateral talks.

Former President Clinton forged a bilateral deal in 1994 obligating North Korea to freeze its nuclear activities in return for oil and other aid. But Bush administration officials say the old deal was a failure that should not be repeated because North Korea flouted it by running a secret uranium-enrichment program.

They champion a new six-nation multilateral deal that could bind the North with commitments to China and Russia. China's aid and trade keep North Korea's economy from collapsing.

When asked whether the North's announcement would cause friction with Beijing, Han said his country has "always made our decisions independently based on our own judgment and on our own national interest."

"We are not affected by outside countries' pressure, mediation and persuasion. In fact, we believe that China will help persuade the United States to abandon its hostile policy toward us," he said in the interview.

Governments around the world have expressed concern over North Korea's nuclear statement and urged it to return to talks. But North Korea says it will not do so as long as Washington maintains its "hostile" policy toward the North.

"The key is a change in the hostile U.S. policy toward the North," Han was quoted as saying. "We have no other option but to regard the United States' refusal to have direct dialogue with us as an intention not to recognize us and to eliminate our system."