The White House says that North Korea must take irreversible steps toward denuclearization and inter-Korean relations must improve before the six-nation nuclear dialogue can resume.

President Barack Obama's national security adviser Thomas Donilon has insisted that negotiations with North Korea should not repeat the old pattern. He said that North Korea should “first engage with the South and address issues surrounding its military provocation and then take significant and irreversible steps toward the goal of denuclearization."

The remark came while he gave a keynote speech at the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington Tuesday.

Donilon noted that in recent months North Korea has been talking about a return to the six-party talks and making some gestures that shows the communist state’s desire to return to talks.

But the Obama aide stressed that North Korea must first begin taking irreversible steps towards denuclearization before it can obtain the benefits it seeks from the international community and those steps must include monitored suspension of their newly declared uranium enrichment program.

Calling North Korea and Iran the most urgent proliferation threats, he noted that Pyongyang has multiple means to secure nuclear materials while pointing out that it continues to develop long-range missiles.