U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan Friday urged North Korea to return to the six-nation nuclear talks because it would gain economic development in dropping its nuclear weapons programme. Annan said the U.N. has been providing humanitarian aid to North Koreans and encouraging them at the same time to cooperate with the international community on nuclear disarmament. "We have also tried to get them to realize the economic gains they would make if they were to comply and to cooperate with the international community," Annan told reporters. dpa reported The Pyongyang government has so far refused to return to the Beijing-led talks, which include China, the United States, Russia, North and South Korea, and Japan. Several rounds of negotiations in the past two years failed to convince the North Koreans to drop plans to develop nuclear weapons. Pyongyang said this week it had succeeded in extracting plutonium and uranium from spent fuel rods from two former nuclear reactors. The procedure is essential in developing weapons grade nuclear material. North Korea admitted last month also it is holding nuclear weapons. ---SP 2333 Local Time 2033 GMT
