SEOUL: North Korea said on Monday it had a secret strike force to counter what it called South Korean plots to topple its regime.

The communist North, which often claims that Seoul's conservative government is plotting against it, said such attempts have "recently gone beyond the danger line."

A joint statement from the ministry of people's security and the ministry of state security cited Seoul's demand that Pyongyang scrap its nuclear weapons before any broader settlement of differences.

The statement, carried by the North's official news agency, also criticised efforts by the South's military to defend the disputed Yellow Sea border and "reckless" operations to destabilise the North.

"We have world-level ultra-modern striking force and means for protecting security which have neither yet been mentioned nor opened to the public in total," it said without elaborating.

Nuclear talks

A senior Chinese official trying to restart nuclear disarmament negotiations was expected to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il on Monday, reports said, as the two Koreas held separate talks on reviving stalled tourism projects.

The visit by Wang Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist Party's international department, comes shortly before UN chief Ban Ki-Moon's top political adviser Lynn Pascoe is due in Pyongyang.

South Korean media forecast that Wang, who has met Kim many times in the past, would hold another meeting later on Monday on the last full day of what Beijing calls a "goodwill" visit.

China hosts the six-party nuclear talks which its ally North Korea quit last April, a month before staging a second nuclear test.

As conditions for returning, the North wants Washington to agree to hold formal peace talks and seeks a lifting of United Nations sanctions.

In an apparent conciliatory gesture to Washington, Pyongyang on Saturday freed a US missionary who had crossed the border last Dec.25 on a lone campaign to publicise its rights abuses.

Pascoe was on Tuesday to begin a four-day visit to Pyongyang and has said he will discuss "the entire range of issues."

The North, hit by tougher sanctions for its missile launches and nuclear test last year, has been pushing to revive business projects with the South despite cross-border sabre-rattling from Pyongyang's military.

Agencies