Updated on Friday, November 24, 2006, 00:00 IST

Tokyo, Nov 24: A North Korean official today rejected bilateral talks with Japan at upcoming six-way negotiations due to Tokyo's hard line after Pyongyang's nuclear test.

Japan has imposed a sweeping ban on all imports from North Korea since the impoverished communist regime conducted its first atom bomb test on October 9.

"By implementing the sanctions, the Japanese government is closing off the possibility of contact and exchanges in all areas," Ri Pyong-Dok, a researcher in charge of Japan at the North Korean foreign ministry, said.

"This is my personal view, but I don't think sanctions and dialogue can exist at the same time," he was quoted as saying in an interview in Pyongyang. He repeated North Korea's threat to retaliate against Japan in an unspecified way.

"We cannot sit and watch while enemy forces implement sanctions against us," he said. "On the content of what we will do, you will see it in time."

North Korea on October 31 agreed to return to six-nation disarmament talks, which involve China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States

Top US envoy, Christopher Hill, who was the host of the talks, was due to return next week to China to set a date.

Japanese foreign minister Taro Aso said today that Tokyo was willing to hold bilateral talks with North Korea, as it had during previous rounds in Beijing, and press Pyongyang on its past abductions of Japanese citizens.

Bureau Report