North Korea called Wednesday for direct talks with the United States over a potential missile test, but the Bush administration rejected the overture, saying threats aren't the way to seek dialogue.

"You don't normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles," UN Ambassador John Bolton said. "It's not a way to produce a conversation because if you acquiesce in aberrant behavior you simply encourage the repetition of it, which we're obviously not going to do."

A North Korean is seen between two South Korean soldiers at the truce village of Panmunjon in a file photo. North Korea wants talks with Washington over its apparent preparations for a missile test, Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday. [Reuters]

President Bush, meeting with European leaders in Austria, said North Korea faced further isolation if it went ahead with any launch.

"It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes who have announced they have nuclear warheads, fire missiles," Bush said. "This is not the way you conduct business in the world."

Earlier Wednesday, Han Song Ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the United Nations, said Pyongyang was seeking to resolve the missile test concerns through direct talks with the United States.

"North Korea as a sovereign state has the right to develop, deploy, test fire and export a missile," he told South Korea's Yonhap news agency. "We are aware of the U.S. concerns about our missile test-launch. So our position is that we should resolve the issue through negotiations."

Pyongyang has consistently pressed for direct dialogue with the United States, while Washington insists it will only speak to the North at six-nation nuclear talks. The North has refused to return to the nuclear talks since November, in anger over a US crackdown on the country's alleged illicit financial activity.

State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli reiterated the US position Wednesday, saying direct talks with North Korea are "not in the cards."

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