SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea plans to head back to the bargaining table early next month for talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons program, a news report said Saturday.

The North, believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least a half-dozen bombs, quit international disarmament-for-aid negotiations and conducted a second nuclear test last year, drawing tightened UN sanctions.

The North has said it will only return to the talks, which involve the US, South Korea, China, Russia and Japan, after the sanctions are lifted and it holds peace talks with the United States on formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War. The US and South Korea have responded that the North must first return to the negotiating table and make progress on denuclearization.

An unidentified North Korean official in Beijing said Pyongyang will return to the six-way talks in early April and “present its idea to move forward denuclearization,’’ South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported Saturday.