BEIJING, January 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - North Korea said Friday, January 3, it would welcome outside mediation to encourage the United States back to the dialogue table, stressing that no preconditions were “acceptable”.

North Korea's ambassador to China Choe Kim-Su also said the Stalinist country would not accept pre-conditions for talks and wanted a security guarantee from Washington.

"If there's any country which aspires for security on the Korean peninsula and the peaceful solution of the nuclear issue, they should play a positive role," he told a press conference, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He said the countries should urge "the U.S. to respect international agreements and respond with dialogue to the DPRK (North Korea) without any pre-conditions".

Without specifying which countries he was referring to, he added that they should also "urge the U.S. to give us a security guarantee. If they can't do that it would be better for them to be quiet."

Roh Offers to Mediate

Earlier Friday, South Korea's President-elect Roh Moo-Hyun offered to mediate between Washington and Pyongyang to find a compromise to defuse the crisis over North Korea's nuclear program.

A top aide to Roh said the incoming administration had already established channels of communication with North Korea and hoped to present a solution later this month that would satisfy both Pyongyang and Washington.

"We have been in contact with the North through various channels to find out what it really wants and we believe that the United States wants South Korea to play a role as a mediator so that Washington can reach a compromise without losing face," he told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Roh's spokesman Kim Sang-Woo expressed confidence that a deal was attainable, and said a visit by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly to Seoul next week would be a chance to get "an overall assessment of each side's position".

"President Bush has made it very clear that diplomacy will be able to resolve this issue," Kim told AFP.

"If we can come up with the basis of negotiation (with Pyongyang), we can convey that to Mr Kelly and he will take it back to Washington."

Roh was elected president last month and is due to succeed Kim Dae-Jung next month.

Roh has already pledged to continue Kim's "sunshine" policy of engaging North Korea and vowed during the election campaign that he would not kowtow to the United States which has so far shown little inclination to soften its (tough diplomatic) stance on North Korea.

N Korea, U.S. Must Both Blink

According to analysts, Washington and Pyongyang's seemingly uncompromising stance belies a desire for a peaceful solution on both sides but the chances of a compromise deal will depend on them overcoming a reluctance to blink first.

Both sides appear as far apart as ever with Pyongyang continuing to ramp up the anti-U.S. rhetoric and Bush flaying North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il for "starving" his people.

However, according to Paik Haksoon, an analyst at the Seijong Institute private thinktank, diplomacy was still likely to prevail.

"A compromise solution provided by the new South Korean government must be attractive enough to let both sides come to the dialogue table without losing face," he told AFP.

"The problem so far is that the Bush administration, even though it says it wants a peaceful end, it's doing nothing."

Although the Bush team had given Kim Jong Il's regime little room for maneuver, it would be wary of pushing it so far into a corner that it built up a nuclear arsenal, leaving Washington's Korea policy in tatters.

For its part, Pyongyang was frightened of being targeted as part of an "axis of evil" after any U.S.-led attack on Iraq but wanted to negotiate from a position of strength, said Paik.

"North Korea is very much afraid of what happens after Iraq. They are trying to better their conditions for a deal later. They are using the nuclear card to buy time."

North Korea last month began reactivating a plutonium-producing nuclear complex north of Pyongyang, accusing the United States of breaching a 1994 deal by stopping fuel shipments to the energy-starved country.

The nuclear facilities in Yongbyon had been kept mothballed and under United Nations' monitoring since the 1994 Agreed Framework was signed.

Earlier this week Pyongyang expelled the last inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency and suggested it no longer considered itself bound by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.