(RTTNews) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il expressed willingness to engage in bilateral and multilateral negotiations on his country's disputed nuclear program during a meeting with the special envoy of Chinese President Hu Jintao, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

According to the Xinhua report, Kim expressed his willingness for nuclear talks at a meeting with visiting Chinese presidential envoy Dai Bingguo on Friday. Bingguo is also reported to have handed over a letter from Hu to Kim.

The Xinhua report quoted Kim as telling Bingguo that North Korea is willing to resolve "relevant issues through bilateral and multilateral talks." Kim also told the Chinese envoy that his country "will continue adhering to the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

Meanwhile, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim "conversed with the special envoy in an amicable atmosphere on the matter of invariably developing the friendly relations between the two countries and a series of issues of mutual concern."

However, the official news agencies from both the countries did not mention the contents of the letter Bingguo handed to Kim at the meeting in Pyongyang.
Earlier this month, North Korea had claimed that it was converting plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel into material useable in nuclear weapons and was in the final phase of an experimental uranium enrichment effort. North Korea also urged the UN Security Council to choose between talks or imposing sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear program.

Last month, two North Korean diplomats attached to the country's mission at the UN in New York informed New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson during talks in Sante Fe that Pyongyang was willing to engage in bilateral negotiations with the U.S. outside the stalled six-nation negotiations.

The U.S. welcomed North Korea's offer for bilateral talks, but Washington insisted that any talks linked to Pyongyang's disputed nuclear policy would be within the framework of the stalled six-nation negotiations, which the communist nation abandoned in April over a UN condemnation of a rocket launch.

The latest development comes as the U.S. and other members of the international community are making serious efforts to pressure Pyongyang to back off from its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and rejoin the stalled six-nation talks on its disputed nuclear program. The six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program involve the two Koreas, China, Russia, U.S. and Japan.

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