Seoul: North Korea acknowledged on June 18 that it has a nuclear weapons programme and said it will never give it up without US concessions.

It is quite clear that the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) can never accept the US demand that it scrap its nuclear weapons programme first, said Pyongyang's main state-run newspaper.

First time North Korea's state-run news media said that the North has a nuclear weapons programme. During talks in Beijing in April, US officials said the North Koreans privately told them that Pyongyang already has nuclear weapons and plans to build more.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has urged South East Asian nations to join the United States in pressing North Korea to agree to multilateral talks on ending its nuclear weapons programme, a senior state department official said.

ANI