US says N. Korea must act on nuclear pledge

Kim said Monday that he remains “persistent’’ in his wish “to realize the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,’’ China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.

Kim’s statement followed a meeting in Pyongyang with a visiting Chinese envoy, the latest effort to press North Korea to resume multinational disarmament talks last held in December 2008.

“North Korea is saying the right things’’ about the resumption of nuclear disarmament talks with the United States, China, and three other nations, Philip Crowley, State Department spokesman, said in an e-mail. North Korean officials made similar statements when a US delegation visited in December, he noted.

“But the right words must be followed by action,’’ Crowley said. The Obama administration has repeatedly said it will grant no concessions to the North Korean regime simply for returning to talks, though it has said that a full peace treaty and diplomatic recognition may follow if the North abandons its nuclear program.

An armistice rather than a peace treaty ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Kim made his conciliatory comments after he met with China’s Wang Jiarui, who delivered a message from President Hu Jintao of China, and had “a cordial and friendly conversation,’’ North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported. Kim didn’t say whether North Korea would return to the so-called six-party talks hosted by China.

President Obama’s special envoy for North Korea policy, Stephen Bosworth, visited Pyongyang in December following an invitation from Kim. Kim’s regime has since said it will return to negotiations only after UN Security Council sanctions are removed.

The Security Council imposed further sanctions in June following North Korea’s detonation of a second nuclear device in May and its firing of more than a dozen missiles in defiance of the international community.