But the announcement, made simultaneously on Wednesday in Pyongyang and Washington and accompanied by pledges of U.S. food aid, was met with very guarded optimism by analysts and diplomats who noted that efforts to defuse tensions on the divided Korean peninsula had seen many false dawns.
North Korea said it would suspend nuclear tests, long-range missile launches and enrichment of uranium at its Yongbyon nuclear facility and allow back international nuclear inspectors.
It was not clear how much access inspectors would be allowed nor whether all of its nuclear weapons program would be suspended.
The move comes two months after the young Kim Jong-un took over the family dynasty that has ruled the isolated North since its founding and which has for years relied on the threat of a nuclear arsenal to give it some leverage in its dealings with the outside world.
But the policy has also left it heavily sanctioned by the international community and sapped an already crumbling economy.
Analysts cautioned that Pyongyang had reneged repeatedly on past deals, but its latest move marked a sharp change in course, at least outwardly, by its reclusive leadership after the death in December of Kim's father, veteran leader Kim Jong-il.
U.S. officials said persistence and patience were needed.
"The truth is we've been around the six-party block before. It has a history of ups and downs, sometimes more downs than ups," one U.S. official said. "We can't allow the same patterns of the past to repeat themselves."
Along with suspending weapons activities, North Korea said it would permit inspectors from the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit its Yongbyon nuclear complex to verify the moratorium on uranium enrichment has been enforced.
The State Department said that in return, the United States was ready to go ahead with a proposed 240,000 tones in food aid requested by North Korea and that more aid could be agreed.
The U.S. decision to resume food aid was a gesture toward Pyongyang, which has sought international help to cope with chronic food shortages.
It halted food aid to North Korea in 2009 in a dispute over transparency and monitoring, compounding problems that have followed a crippling famine in the 1990s that killed an estimated one million people. The North has been accused in the past of siphoning of aid to feed its army, one of the world's largest, or even exporting it.
This time, the food aid will be aimed at alleviating chronic malnutrition among young children, pregnant women and other vulnerable people, U.S. officials said
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