The US on Wednesday insisted that the six party talks is the way forward to achieve the goal of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and it is working in this regard with its key international partners.

"We are focused on with North Korea is getting to the point where we can re-launch the Six-Party Talks which will get us to our ultimate goal, which is the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

Kelly said reprocessing plutonium is contrary to North Korea's own commitments that it committed to in the 2005 joint statement, and also would be a violation of various UN Security Council resolutions.

"What we're looking for is North Korea to take steps to achieve verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner," he said. He was responding to announcement made by North Korea that it has completed reprocessing all 8,000 spent fuel rods extracted from its only operating nuclear reactor in Yongbyon and made achievements in weaponising the plutonium.

Under a 2005 agreement, the reactor and other nuclear facilities were being dismantled by the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia until early this year, till Pyongyang boycotted the six-party talks, citing UN sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests.

Noting that the goal here is a comprehensive peaceful solution to the tension in Northeast Asia, Kelly said: "We want to make sure that we all move towards that goal. I think everybody should be careful and ratchet down the rhetoric and not take any actions that would contribute to tension in the region."

... contd.