North Korea said Sunday it is committed to banning nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, a day after the hardline nation announced it would return to disarmament talks it has boycotted for the past year. The announcement came on the same day U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chinese leaders met to try to resolve the impasse that has sparked concern that the North might be developing nuclear weapons. "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 North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said, according to the country's official Korean Central News Agency. North Korea "will do its utmost for it." Pyongyang also repeated that its "ultimate goal" is "to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and it is its consistent stand to attain the goal through dialogue and negotiations." North Korea "has neither opposed nor given up the six-party talks," the unnamed spokesman was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. The North said its contacts with U.S. officials "clearly proves that it is possible to settle any problem when the parties concerned directly come out to solve it." Earlier, North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan told U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill that his nation is prepared to return to the talks during the week of July 25. Word of the North Korean decision came as Rice arrived late Saturday in Beijing, the first stop on a four-country tour devoted primarily to the North Korea situation. --MORE 1122 Local Time 0822 GMT
