BY JUN KWANWOO Agence France-Presse

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il reaffirmed his pledge to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons and reportedly sent his nuclear envoy to Beijing, amid a diplomatic drive to revive disarmament talks.

In the latest apparent attempt to press the North to restart dialogue, top United Nations official Lynn Pascoe arrived in Pyongyang Tuesday, China’s Xinhua news agency reported from the North Korean capital.

Pascoe, the senior political adviser to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, is the first high-level UN official to visit the North since 2004.

Kim was speaking Monday to visiting senior Chinese official Wang Jiarui, who was also trying to coax the North back to the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks which it angrily abandoned last April.

He reiterated “the country’s persistent stance to realize the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” Xinhua said.

“The sincerity of relevant parties to resume the six-party talks is very important,” it quoted Kim as saying.

The report did not indicate whether the North is about to end its boycott. Pyongyang’s top nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-Gwan, flew to Beijing Tuesday along with Wang, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

Analysts said the impoverished North, hit by tougher UN sanctions for its 2009 missile launches and nuclear test, may be seeking a way to return to the talks which group the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the United States.

The discussions will likely resume in March, said Yang Moo-Jin of Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, adding that Kim Kye-Gwan was expected to tell China of leader Kim’s view on the timing.

“North Korea desperately wants a breakthrough to revive its worsening economy,” Yang told Agence France-Presse.

As conditions for its return, the North wants Washington to agree to hold bilateral formal peace talks. It also wants the UN sanctions lifted.

In an apparent conciliatory gesture to Washington, Pyongyang Saturday freed a US missionary who had crossed the border from China to publicize rights abuses.

But on Monday it blasted Seoul for allegedly plotting to topple Kim’s regime and warned that it has a “secret strike force” to protect the country.

It criticized efforts by the South’s military to defend the disputed Yellow Sea border—where the North fired artillery salvoes late last month—and complained about the increase in scattering anti-Kim leaflets across the border.

By depicting external threats, Kim’s regime is trying to tighten its grip over society following a failed currency revaluation on November 30, said Kim Yong-Hyun, a professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University.

The currency chaos further worsened food shortages in the hardline communist state and sparked rare public unrest and violence, Seoul-based groups have reported.

“Its economy has not been in good shape since the currency revaluation and it also needs to break the deadlock in six-party talks,” Kim told Agence France-Presse. Otherwise, he said, its rulers knew the country could become unstable.

Despite NK’s fiery rhetoric, South Korea’s unification minister Hyun In-Taek said he hopes for a turning point in relations with the North this year.

But Hyun said it must agree to discuss its nuclear programs with the South as a precondition for “a new kind of inter-Korean relationship.”

North Korea says it developed nuclear weapons to deter US aggression and the issue must be settled mainly with Washington.