N. Korean leader said to have promised no additional nuclear test

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told a ranking Chinese envoy that his country has no plan to conduct additional nuclear tests, an informed diplomatic source here said Friday.

Kim made the promise in his meeting with Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan, who visited Pyongyang as Chinese President Hu Jintao's special envoy earlier this week, the source said.

"Kim was known to have clarified his stance that there will be no additional nuclear test," the source said.

If Kim's position is confirmed to be true, it will raise hopes for the resumption of the six-way talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program and defuse the tension escalated by North Korea's detonation of an atomic bomb on Oct. 9.

Earlier, the Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed that Tang met with the North Korean leader to persuade it not to take any more provocative steps.

Tang told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that his trip to Pyongyang was not fruitless.

"Fortunately, my visit this time has not been in vain," Tang told Rice, who is on a trip here in the wake of whistle-stop visits to Tokyo and Seoul. But he did not elaborate on the results of his trip to Pyongyang.

Based on information from diplomatic sources, the Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, on Friday quoted the North Korean leader as telling Tang that his country will rejoin the six-way talks if the U.S. lifts financial restrictions on a Macau bank believed to have served as a conduit for the North's counterfeiting and money laundering.

Rice said in Seoul on Thursday that the diplomatic path remains open for North Korea.

However, a report by Agence France-Presse cited Rice as saying the North Korean leader had offered "nothing surprising" during a meeting with Tang.

"There wasn't anything particularly suprising" that came out of the encounter, she said, according to AFP.

Beijing, Oct. 20 (Yonhap News)