SEOUL, Nov 19 (AFP) - President Barack Obama announced Thursday he would send US envoy Stephen Bosworth to North Korea for direct talks on December 8, naming a date for the mission for the first time.

"We will be sending Ambassador Bosworth to North Korea on December 8 to engage in direct talks with the North Koreans," he told reporters after talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak.

Bosworth's mission is to bring the North back to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks which it quit in April, a month before staging a second atomic weapons test.

The North's nuclear ambitions were the key topic during Obama's visit to Seoul, the fourth and last stop on his debut Asian tour.

Leader Kim Jong-Il said last month his country is ready to return to the six-nation talks but only if the bilateral discussions with the United States are satisfactory.

The six-nation talks group the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan and began more than six years ago.

Obama condemned what he called a pattern in which the North behaves provocatively for a while, returns to talks and then walks out again when it fails to secure further concessions.

"The door is open to resolving these issues peacefully, for North Korea to see over time the reduction of sanctions and its increasing integration into the international community," Obama said.

"But it will only happen if North Korea is taking serious steps around the nuclear issue. We will not be distracted by a whole host of other side efforts."

Lee held out hope for eventual denuclearisation of the North despite "long and tough" negotiations.

"I have a conviction that it will be achieved eventually," he said, adding that Obama shares this view.