US President George W. Bush said he was "optimistic" about the proposed multilateral talks. South Korean officials said Seoul, Washington and Tokyo would hold policy coordination talks going into dialogue with North Korea.

"We are optimistic.... We will hold policy coordination soon with Washington and Tokyo," a South Korean foreign ministry official said.

Yonhap news agency said the meeting would be held in Washington next week.

South Korea will present detailed suggestions on the timing and ways to implement a set of initiatives to lead North Korea to give up its nuclear program in exchange for economic and security guarantees, Yonhap said.

North Korea said Friday it had accepted a six-way forum, to include Russia, Japan and South Korea in talks with the United States and China.

The acceptance followed months of haggling over the format of talks to end the stand-off that began last October when Washington revealed that North Korea had broken a 1994 accord and was running a nuclear program based on enriched uranium.

Pyongyang had been insisting on one-on-one talks with the United States, which had wanted other parties involved.

Bush said the United States had been "very concerned about trying to enter into a bilateral agreement" with North Korea because its leader Kim Jong-Il "didn't tell the truth" about its nuclear program.

"So we took a new tack ... to engage China in the process so that there is more than one voice speaking to Mr. Kim Jong-Il," he said.

"We are hopeful that Mr. Kim Jong-Il ... will make a decision to totally dismantle his nuclear weapons program" in a verifiable manner.

"We're optimistic that that can happen."

Japanese leaders welcomed signs of North Korean flexibility. Moscow's Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov also said the move "opens the way to a resolution" of the nuclear impasse.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was also "encouraged" by the break-through in diplomatic efforts to end the stand-off, which was compounded by North Korea's expulsion of UN nuclear inspectors late last year and its withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The North has since claimed it has reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods after reopening its nuclear complex at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, which was closed under the 1994 accord.

Details and timing of the talks are still being discussed, but a US official said they were likely to proceed in Beijing and could come as early as this month. Other officials have set September as the target date.

Experts here suggest North Korea is taking a realistic approach by seeking one-on-one talks with Washington within the multilateral framework.

It had claimed the six-way forum as its idea after passing its acceptance of the plan through communication channels at the United Nations on Thursday, a US-based official said.

Pyongyang claims Washington is intent on launching an invasion to overthrow its communist regime, and has insisted that the United States first offer security guarantees to address the nuclear issue.

South Korea has proposed a solution that partially reflects Pyongyang's demands, including a security guarantee from Washington.

Bush has said Washington had no intention of attacking the Stalinist state and has promised significant US and international help once the North scraps its nuclear weapons drive.

Any talks are certain to be tricky and any accord difficult to implement. It took nearly two years to negotiate a bilateral accord in 1994 that froze North Korea's previous nuclear weapons drive.

There was no sign from North Korea that it had plans to call off its war of words with Washington.

Minju Josun, the newspaper published by North Korea's cabinet, said Saturday Washington was using "nuclear phobia" to blackmail the Stalinist state.

Earlier in the week top US arms negotiator John Bolton said the days of North Korea's nuclear blackmail were over.

Washington believes North Korea had extracted enough weapons-grade plutonium for about two nuclear bombs before it froze its Yongbyon plant. Reprocessing the fuel rods could provide enough additional material for around six bombs within months, according to analysts.

On Saturday, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency warned that the isolated country would take strong counter-measures if Washington tries to refer the nuclear issue to the UN.

"If the nuclear issue on the peninsula is partially handled at the UN under the pressure of the US, the DPRK (North Korea) will take a strong self-defensive measure to cope with it," it said.

WAR.WIRE