North Korea and the United States have agreed to hold two official meetings before North Korea returns to multilateral talks, U.S. Foreign Policy magazine reported Tuesday. The agreement came in a meeting between Sung Kim, the U.S. special envoy to the six party talks, and Ri Gun, director general of the North American affairs bureau of North Korea's Foreign Ministry, it said quoting a source.

The U.S. named three conditions, namely holding two formal bilateral meetings before North Korea returns to multilateral talks, and allowing U.S. special representative for North Korea policy Stephen Bosworth to meet with North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju when he visits Pyongyang. The third condition was "to abide by its previous commitments, namely the September 19, 2005 declaration in which the North Koreans committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA safeguards."

North Korea agreed to hold two formal meetings, backing down from its original position to do so only if the first round went well. It did not object to Bosworth meeting Kang instead of a lower-ranking official, but demurred on the third condition. Instead it "wanted to resume talks based on the idea of 'denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,' a nuanced but important distinction," the magazine said.

That way, the North adhered to the position that South Korea too must submit to inspections, Foreign Policy added.