North Korea will refrain from testing nuclear weapons if China and the United States engage Pyongyang in talks to improve ties and ultimately sign a peace treaty, experts said Thursday.

Speculation has been rife over when North Korea will carry out another nuclear test following the fourth one in January that prompted stronger international sanctions against the regime.

Many observers expected the fifth test to come ahead of this month's congress of the ruling Workers' Party, which was used as a venue to rally support behind North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and consolidate his grip on power.

There was no such experiment, but Kim made clear he would continue to pursue nuclear and economic development in tandem.

"It's certain North Korea will continue to strengthen its nuclear program, but it's also certain the North will come forward if the international community proposes talks on the conditions necessary for its survival and development," Paik Hak-soon, senior fellow at the private think tank Sejong Institute, said during a forum on the party congress. "In that situation, the North won't test (nuclear weapons), although it may if the talks go awry."

Paik stressed the need for dialogue, saying it opens more opportunities to resolve the nuclear impasse than an absence of talks.

For North Korea, the top item on the talks' agenda would be the discussion of a peace treaty with Washington to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, Paik said. The conflict ended in an armistice, leaving the two Koreas technically at war. The U.S. still has a large troop presence in the South to deter North Korean aggression.

"If the U.S. shows an eager attitude toward a peace treaty, that will be the surest way to draw North Korea back into talks on its denuclearization," the expert said.

North Korea and China have recently pressed the U.S. to open talks on a peace treaty, but Washington has insisted the focus of any dialogue with Pyongyang should be its denuclearization.

Cheong Seong-chang, another senior fellow at the Sejong Institute, said an improvement in ties with China could also stop the North from conducting a nuclear test.

"Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter (to Kim over his new title as chairman of the Workers' Party), seemingly creating a mood for dialogue between the North and China, whose ties have been strained," he said. "If that develops, the North won't test (its nuclear weapons)."

However, if such talks don't materialize, Pyongyang may launch a provocation toward the end of the year before the U.S. presidential election in a bid to increase its leverage in negotiations with the outside world, Cheong added. (Yonhap)