Hot on the heels of US diplomatic chief John Kerry's trip to Beijing, China's top nuclear envoy Wu Dawei will make a rare visit to Washington for talks on North Korea, a US official said Friday. Wu "will visit Washington April 21-24 for consultations with Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies and other US officials," the State Department official told AFP. "Both the United States and China agree on the fundamental importance of a denuclearized North Korea," the official added, asking not to be named.

North Korea offered talks Thursday with South Korea and the United States, but laid out pre-conditions that Seoul and Washington dismissed and analysts said would do little to reduce soaring tensions. The demands laid out by the North's main military body included the withdrawal of UN sanctions and a permanent end to South Korea-US joint military drills. The offer followed a month of increasingly hostile exchanges between Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington that have included threats of nuclear war and precision missile strikes.

North Korea offered talks Thursday with South Korea and the United States, but laid out pre-conditions that Seoul dismissed as "absurd" and analysts said would do little to reduce soaring tensions. The demands laid out by the North's main military body included the withdrawal of UN sanctions and a permanent end to South Korea-US joint military drills. The offer followed a month of increasingly hostile exchanges between Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington that have included threats of nuclear war and precision missile strikes.

North Korea laid out onerous conditions Thursday for any talks with Seoul or Washington, including the withdrawal of UN sanctions and a guaranteed end to South Korea-US joint military drills. "If the US and the South enemies... genuinely want dialogue and negotiation, they should take these steps," the North's National Defence Commission said in a statement. The conditions are almost certain to be rejected outright by both South Korea and the United States, which have themselves made dialogue conditional on the North taking steps towards denuclearisation.