The move comes as the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas scramble to arrange a new round of negotiations, with South Korea and Russian saying they are unlikely this month.

North Korea has said before it is willing to freeze its "nuclear activities" in exchange for U.S. aid and being delisted from Washington's roster of terrorism sponsoring nations.

Tuesday's developments come as a delegation of U.S. congressional aides heads to North Korea to possibly tour the communist country's disputed nuclear plant at Yongbyon. A South Korean Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity that they were to stay in the North from Tuesday to Saturday.

The Yongbyon complex is at the heart of the standoff, and there has been no outside access to the facility since North Korea expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors at the end of 2002.

On Tuesday, North Korea said it was "set to refrain from the testing and production of nuclear weapons and stop even operating nuclear power industry for a peaceful purpose as first-phase measures of the package solution."

In a commentary carried by the official KCNA news agency, North Korea called the offer "one more bold concession."

Washington has said it wants North Korea to verifiably begin dismantling its nuclear weapons programs before it delivers any concessions.

North Korea said its first-step proposal should be the focus of preparations for new talks.

"If the United States keeps ignoring our efforts and continues to pressurize the DPRK to scrap its nuclear weapons program first while shelving the issue of making a switchover in its policy toward the DPRK, the basis of dialogue will be demolished and a shadow will be cast over the prospects of talks," KCNA said.

DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.

South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles affairs with North Korea, says North Korea has at least three nuclear reactors.

Last year, it restarted a five-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon. An unfinished 50-megawatt reactor also stands at Yongbyon, and a 200-megawatt one is located just northeast of the site at Taechon.

A U.S.-led international consortium had been building two 1,000-megawatt light-water reactors on the country's east coast. But that project was suspended last month amid the nuclear standoff.

North Korea's neighbors were suspicious of the peaceful intent behind the communist nation's other nuclear reactor and agreed to help build the light-water ones because they are more difficult to convert to weapons use. North Korea's offer to suspend all nuclear activities, even those for peaceful purposes, could be aimed at easing those suspicions.

Chinese and Russian officials met in Moscow on Monday to try smoothing a way toward a new session of six-nation talks. A first round of talks in Beijing in August ended with little progress.

There were hopes a new round could open early this year, after differences between the United States and North Korea prevented more negotiations before the close of 2003.

But Russian and South Korean officials said Monday talks would probably not happen this month, citing differences between the Washington and Pyongyang as well as scheduling difficulties around the Russian Christmas holiday and the Chinese Lunar New Year.

The North Korean nuclear crisis flared in October 2002 when U.S. officials accused North Korea of running a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 deal in which North Korea is obliged to freeze its nuclear facilities. Washington and its allies cut off free oil shipments, also part of the 1994 accord.

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