South Korean Foreign Minister Ki-Moon Ban expressed confidence that increased diplomatic pressure on North Korea to rejoin six-nation talks aimed at ending the country's nuclear weapons programme will succeed. "With this increased and intensified diplomatic effort, I am confident that, in the end, North Korea will come back to the dialogue table," Ban said after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "I think that is to (North Korea's) benefit, if they return to the dialogue table and commit themselves to abandon their nuclear weapons development programme and get international economic assistance as well as security assurances - which they need," he added. North Korea announced on Thursday that it had nuclear weapons and would not return to six-nation talks, upping the ante in the standoff that erupted in October 2002 when Pyongyang admitted to restarting the programme in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States. Ban was in Washington on a previously scheduled visit as the United States seeks to step on pressure on North Korea to participate in negotiations. --More 2302 Local Time 2002 GMT
