Obama administration would talk to North Korea - aide

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration would be willing to hold bilateral talks with North Korea but only if certain conditions were met, the president's top adviser on Asia said on Friday.

President Barack Obama leaves on Wednesday on a trip to Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea, during which advisers had said North Korea's nuclear ambitions will be one of the important security issues discussed.

"We are prepared to engage directly with the North Koreans," Jeffrey Bader, senior director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, said during a pre-trip briefing at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington.

"The Obama administration believes it is better to hear directly from others, including adversaries, than to hear from them secondhand through a filter. But we are not interested in talks for talks' sake," he said.

Washington and its allies have been trying to prod a reluctant North Korea back to the six-party talks -- involving China, the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan and Russia -- on ending its nuclear arms program.

Pyongyang quit the disarmament-for-aid talks in April and announced it would resume its nuclear development activities. The North held its second ever nuclear test in May, prompting fresh international sanctions.

Obama administration officials have insisted that any bilateral contacts with North Korea result in the rapid resumption of the stalled six-country negotiations.

"We are ready to talk to North Korea in the context of the six-party talks with the explicit goal of denuclearization and with a recognition that its previous commitments to denuclearize and return to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, notably those in 2005, remain valid," Bader said.