North Korea has entered the final phase of uranium enrichment, the country's state media has reported.

"Uranium enrichment tests have been successfully carried out and that process is in the concluding stage," state media were quoted as saying.

Uranium enrichment can be a step towards making fuel for a nuclear bomb, a move in defiance of pressure on the North to abandon its nuclear work, the BBC reported.

The UN passed tougher sanctions after a nuclear test by Pyongyang in May.

Both that test and an earlier nuclear test by North Korea in 2006 were understood to have been plutonium-based warheads.

The North's KCNA news agency reported that North Korea's delegation at the United Nations had written to the Security Council, saying Pyongyang was now ready "for both sanctions and dialogue".

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