The foreign ministry said a formal message outlining Pyongyang's position was delivered to Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov during a meeting requested by North Korea's ambassador to Moscow, Pak Ui Chun.

"On his leadership's instructions, the ambassador said that North Korea supports holding six-nation talks with Russia's participation to resolve the current difficult situation on the Korean peninsula, and is taking active steps to organise (these talks)," the ministry said in a statement.

"Russia welcomed this constructive decision of Pyongyang," it added.

The statement made no mention of earlier demands by the Stalinist state that Washington offer security guarantees in the form of a non-aggression pact with North Korea in order for it to pursue negotiations.

Washington has been pressing for expanded dialogue with Pyongyang following initial three-way talks in Beijing in April involving China, North Korea and the United States.

North Korea, which has held out for one-on-one talks with the United States, has been considering a new US proposal for resuming three-party negotiations followed quickly by six-party talks with Seoul, Tokyo and Moscow joining the forum.

The Russian foreign ministry said that the standoff had to be resolved through negotiations that "guaranteed the Korean peninsula's non-nuclear status and the security of the states in the region."

Fedotov on Monday had urged the United States to provide North Korea with the security guarantee that Pyongyang has demanded before continuing talks on its nuclear weapons program.

The Russian announcement came as top US arms negotiator John Bolton slammed North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il for forcing his people live a "hellish nightmare" as he stepped up a war of words with Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons ambitions.

The US undersecretary for arms control and international security said Kim had to scrap his nuclear weapons drive and was "dead wrong" if he thought developing them would serve to strengthen his regime.

The nuclear crisis flared in October when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted to having a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 bilateral accord that froze North Korea's nuclear activities.

North Korea kicked out UN nuclear inspectors, then withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has since claimed it has reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, an act which could herald efforts to build a bomb.

Russia has revived Soviet-era ties with the isolated regime in Pyongyang in recent years and is keen to expand its influence in the region by helping to broker a settlement.

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