North Korea on Thursday called on the US to “rebuild the groundwork” for multilateral talks on its nuclear weapons programmes by apologising for labelling it an “outpost of tyranny”.

Underlining Pyongyang’s belief that the Bush administration’s “hostile” policies towards it were blocking the resumption of six-party talks, North Korea also said it no longer felt obliged to abide by the 1999 moratorium on missile testing agreed with former US president Bill Clinton.