Blair's remarks came as Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell will later this week become the first British minister to visit Pyongyang to discuss nuclear weapons and other issues.

Britain first established diplomatic relations with the reclusive Stalinist state in December 2000.

"I think it is important to send a very clear message to North Korea about the priority we attach to North Korea getting into a proper dialogue, which means that we deal with the nuclear arms issue in relation to North Korea," Blair said during a press conference at Downing Street.

"We do this without any doubts or illusions about the nature of the regime in North Korea, how it treats its own people, and the programs that we think they are engaged in," he said.

"But I think it is important to reinforce that message and that is why a junior minister is going there," he said.

"Do I think it will work? I don't know. You will have to ask me that when he comes back," he said.

During his mission, Rammell will also raise the issue of human rights abuses in talks with North Korean ministers. He is due to North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun and other senior figures.

Rammell said last month he would press North Korea over its apparent quest for nuclear weapons, a crisis which began in October 2002 when the United States accused Pyongyang of operating a secret nuclear programme based on enriched uranium.

Several rounds of talks involving North Korea and the United States along with China, Japan, Russia and South Korea have failed to break the deadlock.

North Korea has been ruled for the past half-century by father-and-son dictators Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. Its exact human rights record is very difficult to gauge since the bulk of the country is completely sealed off to foreigners.

But rights groups and defectors say thousands of political prisoners are detained in often appalling conditions, while widespread executions, torture and forced labour are also reported.