North Korea Tuesday expressed willingness to return to nuclear disarmament negotiations it quit six months ago, but only after it talks directly to the United States to improve "hostile relations".
Leader Kim Jong-Il gave the commitment at a meeting late Monday with visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, the North's official news agency reported.
Highlighting the urgency of the issue, a South Korean source said the North appeared to be in the final stages of restoring plutonium-producing plants that it had shut down before abandoning the six-party talks.
"The hostile relations between the DPRK (North Korea) and the United States should be converted into peaceful ties through the bilateral talks without fail," the agency paraphrased Kim as saying.
"We expressed our readiness to hold multilateral talks, depending on the outcome of the DPRK-US talks. The six-party talks are also included in the multilateral talks."
Kim said the North's commitment to denuclearising the Korean peninsula remained unchanged. The official Xinhua news agency in China, which hosts the six-party forum, said the two leaders reached "vital consensus" on the issue.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu welcomed North Korea's move and described the six-party format as an "effective mechanism".
"China is ready to, as always, work with the DPRK and other relevant sides to make a positive contribution for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and the peace, stability and development of northeast Asia," Ma said, quoted by Xinhua.
Some analysts said the North did not want to snub China, its biggest trade partner and chief energy supplier, by spurning the talks. They said Pyongyang's willingness to scrap its cherished nuclear programme remained questionable.
The North Koreans "are clearly trying to mend relations with China and show appreciation for its economic assistance", said Peter Beck, senior researcher at Stanford University in the United States.
"But the North has left itself a lot of wiggle room to back out of the talks if it feels it's not getting what it wants," he told AFP.
The North has lately linked denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula to the pace of global atomic disarmament efforts, and says it needs atomic weapons as a shield against US hostility.
It quit the six-nation forum in April after the United Nations condemned its long-range rocket launch. In May it staged its second nuclear test, incurring tougher UN sanctions supported even by close ally China.
The North has long been pressing for bilateral talks with the United States, apparently in hopes of enhancing its international stature.
The US State Department reiterated it is ready for discussions aimed at bringing the North back to the six-nation talks, but the goal must be a complete end to Pyongyang's nuclear programmes.
The six-party talks, which began in 2003, group the two Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan. The forum reached deals in 2005 and 2007 under which the North shut down its plants at Yongbyon and began disabling them.
But after backing out of the talks the North vowed to reverse the process.
"There are signs that the restoration of the Yongbyon facility is in its final stage," the South Korean defence source told Yonhap news agency, citing intelligence reports presented at a parliamentary hearing this week.
Russia welcomed pledges by North Korea and the United States to hold bilateral talks, deputy foreign minister Alexander Borodavkin told the ITAR-TASS news agency.
South Korea reacted cautiously to Pyongyang's announcement while Japan welcomed it.
"I believe we have to confirm North Korea's real intentions through discussions with China," said Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan in Seoul.
His Japanese counterpart said he hoped the forum would resume soon.
North Korea "had until now articulated clearly dismissive views on six-way talks. But it is a welcome step that it has specifically referred to the term 'six-party talks' in its statement," Katsuya Okada told reporters.
China, Japan and South Korea will have an opportunity to discuss the North's offer at a summit Saturday in Beijing.
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