VIENNA: US and EU representatives pressed North Korea at a meeting of the UN atomic watchdog Tuesday to return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks and allow UN inspectors back into the country.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board of governors heard statements from a number of different countries all urging Pyongyang to resume cooperation with the IAEA and return to negotiations with South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China.

US envoy to the IAEA, Glyn Davies, said Washington "calls on North Korea to return without conditions to the six-party talks and honour its commitments to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula."

Pyongyang quit the six-party talks in April in protest at UN censure of a rocket launch.

The hardline communist state also carried out a second nuclear test in May. And last week, it said it had reached the final stages of enriching uranium and was also building more plutonium-based atomic weapons.

The European Union "strongly condemns these actions and urges the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) to abandon and completely dismantle any nuclear weapons-related programme in a prompt, transparent, verifiable and irreversible manner," the 27-nation bloc said in a statement read out by Sweden, which currently holds the EU presidency.

"There is an urgent need for the discontinued international dialogue to resume," the EU said.

Similar statements were also made by Russia, South Korea and Japan -- members of the six-party grouping -- according to diplomats who attended the meeting.

Davies insisted Washington was "open to engaging North Korea, including bilaterally within the multilateral framework of the six-party talks."

IAEA member countries also urged North Korea to restart cooperation with the atomic watchdog.

In April, Pyongyang ordered the IAEA to remove all containment and surveillance equipment from the Yongbyon nuclear facilities and asked its inspectors to leave the country.

"The EU urges the DPRK to reverse its decision to expel IAEA inspectors as well as the decision to restore those nuclear facilities which have been disabled, and to resume and maintain its cooperation with the IAEA," Sweden said.

Washington too "believes that the IAEA has an important role to play" in the disarmament process, Davies said.

"As my president said: 'North Korea has a pathway to acceptance in the international community, but it will not find that acceptance unless it abandons its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and abides by its international obligations and commitments'."

The IAEA board was set to continue its traditional September meeting on Wednesday, when the focus of debate would switch to the investigations into alleged illicit nuclear activities in Iran and Syria.