"Six-party talks for a solution to the nuclear issue between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US will be held in Beijing soon thanks to the former's initiative and peaceful efforts," a foreign ministry spokesman said through Pyongyang's state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Details and timing of the talks are still being discussed, but US and South Korean officials have said they could come as early as this month. Other officials have mentioned September as a target date for talks.

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

It claimed the six-way forum for talks was its own idea, and said Washington had accepted one-on-one talks as part of the multilateral meeting.

"It is an expression of our utmost magnanimity as the proposal has come from the stand to solve the nuclear issue between the two countries peacefully through dialogue in any case," the North's spokesman said.

He said the talks would "clearly show the world community whether the US has a true willingness to make a switchover in its policy towards the DPRK or not."

South Korea's assistant unification minister Shin Eon-Sang told Yonhap news agency Monday that talks could take place in early September.

"So far nothing has been decided on where or when the six-way talks are to take place and in what form North Korea and the United States would hold dialogue, but the first round of talks are expected to be held in Beijing in early September," he said.

Shin also said the talks were likely to be dominated by how and in what form the United States provides a non-aggression commitment to North Korea.

In Beijing, the foreign ministry said China supported the six-way talks and was willing to work to ensure they took place soon.

"China supports the expansion of the Beijing talks, and welcomes North Korea's announcement that six-way talks will take place in Beijing," foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan said in a statement posted on the ministry's website.

"China ... is willing to maintain consultations with all parties in order to enable the six-party talks to take place at an early date," he said.

EU foreign policy envoy Javier Solana Monday welcomed North Korea's agreement to six-party talks and hoped "that rapid progress can be made then towards the peaceful resolution" to the nuclear crisis.

Senior US, South Korean and Japanese officials are to meet in Washington next week to fine-tune their North Korea policy ahead of the six-party talks, according to Seoul's Yonhap news agency.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week the upcoming six-party nuclear crisis talks would proceed in an "open and transparent" way, ruling out any secret US deal with North Korea.

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 before it will address the nuclear issue.

US officials have said Washington had no intention of attacking the Stalinist state but they have not ruled out the military option.

The nuclear crisis erupted in October when Washington accused the Stalinist state of reneging on a 1994 bilateral nuclear freeze accord by setting up a clandestine atomic program based on enriched uranium.

Following the October revelations, the 1994 deal swiftly unraveled and the United States stopped fuel deliveries. North Korea then upped the stakes, kicking out International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitors and withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Pyongyang has since claimed it has reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods at its nuclear plant at Yongbyon.

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.

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