The pledge by the North's foreign ministry followed the Stalinist state's announcement Saturday that it would return to talks with the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia in the week beginning July 25.

"The resumption of the talks itself is important, but the most essential thing is for the talks to have an in-depth discussion on ways of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula to make substantial progress in the talks," a ministry spokesman told the official Korean Central News Agency.

"The DPRK (North Korea) will do its utmost for it."

The spokesman put a positive spin on the six-way talks, citing success in a meeting between US and North Korean chief nuclear negotiators in Beijing Saturday which led to an agreement to resume the dialogue process.

"The outcome of the DPRK-US contact clearly proves that it is possible to settle any problem when the parties concerned directly come out to solve it," he said.

North Korea had boycotted the talks since a third round in June 2004, but last month North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il told a South Korean envoy that his country would return to the talks as early as July.

Koh Yu-Hwan, a North Korea expert and professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, said he expected positive developments at the upcoming round of talks.

"As North Korea's supreme leader has thrown himself into the issue this time, producing no tangible results at the new round of talks would trouble his leadership," Koh said.

"Given the North's ruling nature, it would be a huge burden at home to show that their leader could fail," he said, refering to the leadership cult Kim has cultivated.

The North's spokesman praised all dialogue partners, except Japan, for making efforts to jump-start the six-way talks. "But Japan has done nothing for it," he added.

The spokesman repeated that North Korea wants the Korean peninsula to be nuclear-free through peaceful dialogue.

"As the DPRK repeatedly clarified, it is the ultimate goal of the DPRK to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and it is its consistent stand to attain the goal through dialogue and negotiations," he said.

The nuclear standoff flared in October 2002 when Washington accused Pyongyang of operating a nuclear weapons programme based on enriched uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement.

On February 10 this year, North Korea announced it had nuclear weapons.

North Korea had walked away from the six-party process after rejecting a US-led aid-for-disarmament proposal that required Pyongyang to give an upfront pledge to dismantle all its nuclear programmes before receiving any energy and other assistance.

Pyongyang instead wanted a step-by-step approach to weaning itself off its nuclear programme, fearing it could come under attack by the United States if it gave up its nuclear option.

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