China, North Korea's most important financial and military backer, also welcomed the announcement and reiterated long-standing calls by Beijing for a resumptionof six-party talks.
It has called for an emergency meeting to prepare for a resumptionof six-party talks, involving America, Japan and Russia as well as China and the two Koreas.
Chinese state media also reported that Mr. Choe agreed to unspecified dialogue and the possible resumptionof six-party talks, which were used until 2008 to seek North Korea's reversal of its nuclear program.
Urging an early resumptionof long-stalled six-party talks committed to reining in North Korea's nuclear program, Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue told Xinhua that "the peninsula's denuclearization and the normalization of relations" was in all parties' interest.