After securing what its UN envoy termed "a great diplomatic victory" when the UN condemned the sinking without identifying the culprit, the North expressed willingness in principle to return to nuclear disarmament talks.

"The DPRK (North Korea) will make consistent efforts for the conclusion of a peace treaty and the denuclearisation through the six-party talks conducted on equal footing," its foreign ministry said in a statement.

The North noted the UN Security Council's statement encouraged the settlement of outstanding issues on the Korean peninsula through peaceful dialogue.

South Korea, the United States and other countries have accused the North of torpedoing the warship with the loss of 46 lives, a charge it vehemently denies.

"Pyongyang believes it put up a good defence at the United Nations as the statement stopped short of blaming the sinking on the North," Professor Kim Yong-Hyun of Seoul's Dongguk University told AFP.

"North Korea is now taking a peace offensive, calling for dialogue."

The North's statement also aims to "take the steam" out of an upcoming US-South Korea joint naval exercise and the South's own reprisals including a planned resumption of psychological warfare against the North, he said.

The North warned "hostile forces" against carrying out "such provocations as demonstration of forces and sanctions" in contravention of the UN statement.

"They will neither be able to escape the DPRK's strong physical retaliation nor will be able to evade the responsibility for the resultant escalation of the conflict," it said.

But a defence ministry spokesman said Saturday that South Korea would go ahead with the naval exercise with the United States in the Yellow Sea, which has also sparked protests from China.

The South in May announced its own non-military reprisals against the North, including a partial trade ban and the possible resumption of propaganda broadcasts through loudspeakers along the border.

Professor Yang Moo-Jin of Seoul's University of North Korean Studies said that despite the rhetoric, the North's statement is laying emphasis on dialogue.

"Pyongyang is now taking an exit strategy to extricate itself from the row over the sinking," Yang said.

"The North is struggling to send a message that it is in favour of dialogue. This move is aimed at making the planned US-South Korea joint naval exercise and the South's resumption of psychological warfare appear unwarranted."

In an apparent policy shift, the North on Friday offered to hold military generals' talks with the United States to discuss the Cheonan sinking.

It announced on the same day that a US citizen serving a prison term in the North for illegal entry had attempted suicide, driven by "despair at the US government that has not taken any measure for his freedom".

"This is all part of the North's efforts to attract Washington to dialogue," Yang said.

Professor Jang Yong-Suk of Sung Kong Hoe University told Yonhap news agency that China might have urged the North to come back to dialogue in return for its support at the UN Security Council.

The six-party talks -- which involve China, the two Koreas, the United States, Russia and Japan -- have been stalled since North Korea quit them last year in protest over UN censure of its missile test.

The North has previously expressed willingness in principle to return. But first it wants the US to agree to hold talks on a formal peace treaty and an end to sanctions.

earlier related report
North Korea says jailed American attempted suicide
Seoul (AFP) July 9, 2010 - North Korea said Friday that an American serving eight years' hard labour for an illegal border crossing has tried to commit suicide and is being treated in hospital.

Aijalon Gomes was "driven by his strong guilty conscience, disappointment and despair at the US government that has not taken any measure for his freedom", the communist state's official news agency said.

The Swedish embassy, which represents US interests has visited the hospital, it said without giving further details.

The report came hours before the UN Security Council was expected to adopt a statement condemning the sinking of a South Korean warship, an incident which has sharply raised cross-border tensions.

North Korea on June 24 had threatened harsher punishment for Gomes unless Washington drops a campaign to censure it for the sinking.

South Korea and the United States, citing findings of a multinational investigation, accuse the North of blowing the corvette apart in March with the loss of 46 lives.

Pyongyang has angrily denied responsibility and threatened a "do or die" battle in response to any UN censure.

A joint US-South Korean naval exercise in response to the sinking was postponed pending UN action.

But Seoul's defence ministry said Friday the war games, which have sparked strong protests from China, would go ahead at an unspecified time.

"The joint exercise in the Yellow Sea is being planned because North Korea carried out an illegal provocation, the sinking of the Cheonan," said spokesman Won Tae-Jae.

The US military chief in South Korea told a seminar he feared further North Korean provocations in coming years.

"(Leader) Kim Jong-Il has said North Korea will be a great and powerful nation by 2012," Yonhap news agency quoted General Walter Sharp as saying.

Sharp said he believed the only way for Kim to "get to that point is through military provocations and threatening neighbours".

The draft Security Council statement set to be adopted later Friday US time will condemn the attack which led to the sinking. But it stops short of directly blaming the North for it, as Seoul and Washington had wanted.

Permanent council members China and Russia have not publicly accused the North of staging the attack but they signed on to the draft.

This notes the North's denials of involvement. But it expresses "deep concern" at the findings of the multinational probe implicating the North.

It "underscores the importance of preventing such further attacks or hostilities against the ROK (South Korea)".

A Seoul foreign ministry official quoted by Yonhap expressed satisfaction with the draft, saying the council essentially condemned North Korea.

Gomes, a 30-year-old former English teacher in South Korea and reportedly a devout Christian, was arrested in January. He was sentenced in April and fined the equivalent of 700,000 dollars.

The North said two weeks ago it could never accept US requests to free Gomes under the current hostile situation "and there remains only the issue of what harsher punishment will be meted out to him".

South Korean analysts were mixed on the motive behind Friday's report.

Koh Yu-Hwan, of Seoul's Dongguk University, told Yonhap the North was prodding the US to initiate talks as part of a diplomatic outreach following the draft statement.

But Yang Moo-Jin, of Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, said the aim was only "to avoid misunderstandings that Gomes was hurt by mistreatment while in prison".

Gomes crossed into the North one month after US missionary Robert Park walked over a frozen border river on Christmas Day. A Seoul activist has said Gomes may have been inspired by Park's example.

Park was freed in February without standing trial.

American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who also crossed the border illegally, were held for five months before being released last August during a visit to North Korea by former president Bill Clinton.

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