Beijing  - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has said his nation is willing to resume talks on ending its nuclear programme only after bilateral talks with the United States, China's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

"The DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is willing to attend multilateral talks, including the six-party talks, based on the progress in the DPRK-US talks," the ministry quoted Kim as telling visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

"Through the DPRK-US bilateral meeting, the hostile relations between the two countries must turn into peaceful relations," Kim said.

Kim said that denuclearization was the wish of his late father, founding North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.

"The DPRK's commitment to realizing the denuclearization of the peninsula remains unchanged," he was quoted as saying during talks with Wen Monday in Pyongyang.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported the same remarks by Kim, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry quoted Wen as saying that China appreciated North Korea's commitment to dialogue and was "willing to make concerted efforts with North Korea and other relevant parties to contribute to realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

China hopes to persuade North Korea to return to the six-nation talks on ending its nuclear weapons programme. China, Russia, Japan, the United States and South Korea were also involved in the talks.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly voiced openness to bilateral meetings.

"As we've said before, we and our six-party partners want North Korea to engage in a dialogue that leads to complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through irreversible steps," he said late Monday.

"The US remains willing to engage North Korea bilaterally within the framework of the six-party process to convince North Korea to take the path of complete denuclearization."

Kelly said that the US is in "close coordination" with the other six-party participants.

"There is consensus among the five parties that the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula remains the core objective and essential goal of our engagement with North Korea, that the six- party process is the best mechanism for achieving denuclearization," he said.

North Korea on Monday blamed the United States for the nuclear dispute.

In a report of a meeting on Sunday between Wen and North Korean Premier Kim Yong Il, the Korean Central News Agency said Kim Yong Il "pointed out that the United States is to blame for the occurrence of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula."

Pyongyang accuses Washington of initiating the conflict by providing a nuclear umbrella for South Korea, following the 1950-53 Korean War. The two Koreas technically remain in a state of war, as the two countries never signed a peace treaty. (dpa)