President Bush has approved a plan to begin talks with North Korea in Beijing as early as next week to resolve a nuclear stand-off.
China has agreed to participate in the talks.
The development came after North Korea signalled last weekend it was willing to go along with a US demand for multilateral talks. It had insisted for months it wanted to talk only to Washington about its suspected nuclear arms plans.
However, Washington has long argued the North Korean nuclear problem must be resolved in a multilateral way that includes regional players South Korea, Japan, Russia and China, as well as perhaps the European Union because of its aid role in the North.
The relatively quick US-led victory over Iraq appears to have played an important role in prompting North Korea to reconsider its position. But analysts said the diplomacy to reach the weekend announcement must have taken some weeks, and probably included pressure from Pyongyang's main ally, China.