Seoul: North Korea on April 19 proposed holding Cabinet-level talks with South Korea on April 27-29 in Pyongyang, officials said.

The proposal came a day after North Korea claimed it was reprocessing more than 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, which experts have said could give the Communist state enough plutonium to make several atomic bombs within months.

North Korea made the proposal by telephone to South Korean officers at the border village of Panmunjom, South Korea's Unification Ministry said in a news release.

North Korea had suspended several planned talks with South Korea including a Cabinet- level meeting last week amid tension over its suspected nuclear weapons programmes.

Last week, North Korea agreed to hold talks with the United States and China in Beijing as early as next week to try to end the nuclear dispute. The North, however, rejected the South's inclusion in the forthcoming meeting.