North Korea says what the U.S. can offer in terms of compensation would be key to resolving a 20-month old standoff over the North's nuclear weapons program.
North Korea's foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as making the remarks in an interview with the Pyongyang's state-run Korea Central News Agency.
The spokesman rejected a U.S. proposal that the communist state should follow in Libya's footsteps of recently renouncing all weapons of mass destruction.
He said the U.S. must first give up its hostile policies toward North Korea and that the U.S. should withdraw its economic sanctions against the North, take the communist state off Washington's list of terrorist-supporting states and directly participate in providing energy supplies to the North.