SEOUL - Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il pledged to remove nuclear weapons from the peninsula in a meeting with a senior envoy from China, Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday from Pyongyang.

The pledge could bode well for prospects the mercurial and destitute North would end its year-long boycott of international nuclear disarmament talks, in which it could win aid to prop up its economy by reducing the military threat it poses to the region.

China's Xinhua news agency reported that Kim reiterated his "country's persistent stance to realise the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula."

Chinese Communist Party international affairs chief Wang Jiarui met Kim on Monday and conveyed a verbal message from Chinese President Hu Jintao, North Korea's official KCNA news agency reported without elaborating.

China, the North's biggest benefactor, is seen as having the most influence on the reclusive state.

The North has said it could end its nuclear arms programme once the United States drops what it sees as a hostile policy toward it.

In another high-profile visit to the country, U.N. under-secretary-general for political affairs Lynn Pascoe was expected to arrive in Pyongyang on Tuesday for a trip aimed at prodding the North back to the six-way nuclear talks.

Analysts said pressure may be mounting on the North to return to the disarmament-for-aid discussions due to U.N. sanctions imposed after its nuclear test last year that dealt a severe blow to its economy and a botched currency reform measure that sparked inflation and rare civil unrest.