Reports: NKorea wants to send envoy to Washington

North Korea wants to send its chief nuclear envoy to President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration but Washington rejected the idea, news reports said.

North Korea, which does not have diplomatic relations with the U.S., proposed sending Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan to Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported Monday, citing an unidentified South Korean government official.

Washington rebuffed the request, the Yonhap news agency said. South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said he has heard the reports but "I understand things are not going that way."

Such a move would be another sign the regime is eager to forge ties with the next U.S. administration after years of tense relations with the Bush administration.

U.S. officials have not confirmed Pyongyang's reported request. However, the U.S. State Department last week informed foreign embassies in Washington that ambassadors and spouses can attend the inauguration to represent their countries but excluded foreign leaders from the event.

"These invitations are only for the chiefs of diplomatic missions and their spouses and are not transferable," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote in a diplomatic note sent to the embassies on Jan. 6.

An earlier message Rice sent to embassies on Nov. 24 said the exclusion of foreign leaders and top government officials is customary for U.S. presidential inaugurations. Copies of both notes were obtained by The Associated Press on Monday.

Washington and Pyongyang have been locked in a standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

Negotiations aimed at resolving the dispute have been stalled because of the North's refusal to accept a protocol that would allow verification of its nuclear programs' list. The talks involve China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.

But Pyongyang refrained from its routine criticism of the U.S. in its New Year's Day statement in what analysts said was an overture to the incoming U.S. leader.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.