US hails DPRK's statement about no nuke test

WASHINGTON - The United States on Monday applauded the statement by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) that it has no plans to conduct a third nuclear test for now.

"Obviously we'll judge them by their actions, rather than their words," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

"It's a good thing, obviously, that they are saying better things," she told reporters at a regular news briefing.

"But we continue to call on them to fulfill their international obligations to refrain from any provocative activity, including provocative rhetoric with regard to their neighbors," she added. " They should be bound by the terms of their UN obligations and by the talks that they entered into in 2005."

She was referring to the six-party talks involving the DPRK, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan, China, Russia and the United States over the denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

ROK tried to "rattle the nerves of the DPRK in a bid to cause it to conduct a nuclear test, though such a thing is not under plan at present," said a spokesman for the DPRK's Foreign Ministry Saturday in a statement carried by the country's official news agency KCNA.

On May 19, a declaration made by the Group of Eight summit in the United States urged Pyongyang to abandon all nuclear and ballistic missile programs in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible manner" after its failed launch of an "earth observation" satellite on April 13.

Responding to the declaration, the DPRK said on May 22 that it had no plan to conduct nuclear tests alongside its peaceful satellite development program.

The DPRK conducted two nuclear tests in October 2006 and May 2009, and received sanctions by the UN Security Council.