I find the declaration of committment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula from North Korea dripping with irony given that North Korean is the only one on said Peninsula with nuclear weapons.North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has met a visiting Chinese envoy, Chinese and North Korean media report.
The meeting with Wang Jiarui was Mr Kim's first reported meeting with a foreign dignitary for six months.
The reclusive leader, 66, suffered a suspected stroke in August, and has not appeared at any major events since.
Mr Kim said he wanted a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, and was willing to work with China to push forward a six-party process, Chinese media said.
Mr Wang - a senior Chinese Communist Party official who has reportedly met Mr Kim several times in the past, visited the North Korean leader in the capital, Pyongyang.
"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is committed to the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, and hopes to live in peace with all other sides," the Xinhua news agency quoted Mr Kim as saying.
"We don't want to see tension emerge in the situation on the peninsula, and we are willing to strengthen co-ordination and co-operation with China and push forward the six-party process without interruption."
The six-party talks include North and South Korea, China, the US, Japan and Russia.
Succession muddle
Photographs of Mr Kim visiting factories and farms have been released in recent months, but they have been undated.
Speculation about who might replace North Korea's leader peaked recently with conflicting Japanese and South Korean media reports suggesting Mr Kim's eldest son and third son respectively.
We will never do such a thing as showing our nuclear weapons first even in 100 years unless the US hostile policy and nuclear threat to the DPRK are fundamentally terminated
North Korean spokesman
Other suggestions have included Mr Kim's military intelligence chief and his brother-in-law.
Mr Kim inherited the leadership from his father, Kim Il-sung, in 1994.
The reclusive state's leadership is being watched closely as a new administration in the US comes into office.
North Korea has described reports of Mr Kim's stroke, from foreign intelligence agencies, as a "whopping lie".
Six-party talks have stalled over US concerns about how to verify the North's past nuclear activities, including the US demand that North Korea disclose its full nuclear arsenal.
A South Korean nuclear envoy visited North Korea earlier this month.
A North Korean spokesman recently insisted it would not show all its nuclear weapons unless a simultaneous verification took place in South Korea.
"We will never do such a thing as showing our nuclear weapons first even in 100 years unless the US hostile policy and nuclear threat to the DPRK are fundamentally terminated," the spokesman said.
Observers note that while the North may be sending a strong message to President Barack Obama in Washington, it is not necessarily hostile.
They recently noted the unusual lack of criticism directed at the US in the North's New Year message.
It's sort like the mob announcing it's devotion to law and order.
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