The United States won't engage in talks with North Korea unless the discussions are focused on denuclearization, a senior U.S. official said Monday.

The official gave the comment to Yonhap News Agency after a newspaper report that the U.S. had agreed to hold peace treaty talks with Pyongyang on condition that the discussions also deal with denuclearization.

"We have insisted that denuclearization remain the focus of any talks, and we have made clear that a denuclearized Peninsula is our overriding priority," the official said on condition of anonymity.

"To be sure, we would not engage in concerted discussions with North Korea that did not place an emphasis on denuclearization."

The strategy is also shared by other partners of the six-party talks, "including South Korea and Japan, with whom we have an ironclad alliance," the official said.

The official stressed that the U.S. has "consistently told Pyongyang that we remain open to authentic and credible negotiations based on the agreement reached with all members of the six-party talks in September 2005."

The Wall Street Journal report said that the U.S. had conditionally agreed to accept the North's offer to hold peace treaty talks, just days before the North's nuclear test, but Pyongyang rejected the counterproposal and went ahead with the Jan. 6 test.

That raised speculation that Washington had backed down from its denuclearization-first stance.

It is not new that North Korea wants a peace treaty with the U.S. to formally end the Korean War. But Pyongyang pressed the demand harder late last year after Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong made the demand during a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in October.

The U.S. has said the demand is a nonstarter as long as the North pursues nuclear ambitions. U.S. officials have stressed that the communist regime has got the order wrong and should first focus on negotiations to end its nuclear program.

The issue can be on the table when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry holds talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Washington on Tuesday. Last week, Wang proposed holding peace treaty negotiations with Pyongyang in tandem with denuclearization talks.

The U.S. has effectively turned down the proposal, saying denuclearization remains its top priority.

"The secretary will use this opportunity to address the full breadth of issues in the bilateral relationship with China, including climate change, of course, our response to North Korea's ongoing violations of existing U.N. Security Council resolutions, cyber security, as well as other issues of mutual concern and interest," State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said. (Yonhap)