South Korea warned North Korea Monday against carrying out a nuclear weapons test, saying it would only push the Stalinist country further into isolation.

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon made the comments after the Wall Street Journal reported last week that Washington was concerned a North Korean nuclear test could be in the works.

“If North Korea takes reckless measures such as a nuclear test, it will be isolated further from the outside world with its future unguaranteed,” Ban told a seminar here.

“Nuclear weapons will not guarantee North Korea’s security but deepen its political and economic isolation,” Ban said.

He urged North Korea to resume six-nation talks which are aimed at dismantling the country’s nuclear programs.

US satellites have spotted increased activity at North Korean sites where underground nuclear tests could be carried out, the Wall Street Journal said Friday, citing a US official.

The report came after North Korea raised the stakes in the stand-off over its nuclear programs by shutting off a nuclear reactor. The move would allow spent fuel rods to be removed and plutonium to be extracted for atomic weapons.

North Korea’s military chief, Kim Yong-Chun, said Sunday the communist country would “steadily bolster” its nuclear deterrent as a result of hostile moves by the United States.

Top US nuclear negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, arrived in Seoul Sunday on the first leg of a trip to South Korea, Japan and China.

On Monday, the US envoy met his South Korean counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon, and Ban.

Hill will visit Beijing Tuesday and Tokyo Wednesday before flying back to Seoul Thursday for another three-day visit.

With patience running out, the United States is suggesting the nuclear standoff should be brought before the United Nations Security Council if a new round of multilateral talks cannot be brokered.

North Korea has warned that any referral to the Security Council would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

The talks involving the two Koreas, China, Russia, the United States and Japan have stalled since three rounds ended inconclusively in June, 2004. North Korea failed to show up for a fourth round set for September 2004.

North Korea declared in February that it had built nuclear weapons to use in self-defence against the United States.

US intelligence officials say they believe Pyongyang already possesses one or two crude nuclear bombs.

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