By guaranteeing seats at the table to North Korea's neighbors — China, Russia, Japan and South Korea — Washington hopes to draw regional players into a pact that would verify the dismantlement of the North's nuclear weapons program, probably in return for international economic aid and an American promise not to attack North Korea militarily.

Since the nuclear crisis erupted last October with North Korea's admission that it had built a secret weapons program in violation of a 1994 nuclear freeze accord, the North has insisted on one-on-one talks with the United States. The leadership of the isolated nation apparently feared that in group talks the other countries would gang up on it. 

Today, North Korea finally agreed to group talks. In a face-saving move they claimed authorship of the idea and asserted the group talks would be a fig leaf for one-on-one talks. Using the initials for the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said it "put forward a new proposal to have six-party talks without going through the three-party talks and to have the D.P.R.K.-U.S. bilateral talks there."

But Bush administration officials say they do not see the group framework as cover for one-on-one talks.

"Obviously they can always directly talk to us in the multilateral setting," Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, told reporters in Washington today. "If you're sitting at a table, someone can talk across that table."

On Thursday, as North Korea's acceptance of group talks was percolating through the Bush administration, John R. Bolton, the American undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, warned a South Korean audience here, "We do not envision these talks as where the U.S. and the D.P.R.K. stay in the room, while everyone else goes out for a cup of coffee."

From Washington, President Bush said he was hopeful that Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, "because he's hearing other voices, will make the decision to totally dismantle his nuclear weapons program, that he will allow there to be complete transparency and verifiability."

"And we're optimistic that that can happen," he added.

In Tokyo, Mr. Bolton hailed what he called "the acceptance of the U.S. proposal on multilateral talks."

In the regional chess game, experts here noted today that North Korea's concession on the format was announced by Russia, not China, traditionally its closest ally.

"It really shows that China has changed," said Victor D. Cha, a Korea expert at Georgetown University who is visiting here. "The North Koreans must feel they don't trust the Chinese to deliver. That is why the North Korea chose to make this announcement through Russia, not through China. North Korea is losing confidence in China as being on their side."

China used to describe its relationship with North Korea as close as "lips and teeth." 

Ten years ago, Hu Jintao, a Chinese Politburo member, traveled to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, to mark the 40th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War. Last week, Mr. Hu, now president of China, neglected to send an official delegation to Pyongyang to mark the 50th anniversary.

In the intervening decade, South Korea became China's sixth-largest foreign investor, and China became South Korea's largest trading partner. Last year, trade between China and South Korea hit $44 billion, almost 100 times as much as the $500 million in trade between China and North Korea. Chinese gifts of food and oil accounted for most of the $500 million.

China increasingly considers its impoverished neighbor as a liability, an economic failure that will collapse one day, flooding northern China with millions of refugees. On the security side, China fears that North Korea's nuclear program is spurring Japan to join the United States in a missile defense program and is softening attitudes toward an eventual "Japanese bomb."

"China's fear is Japan's nuclearization," said Lee Ki Tak, a former national security adviser to South Korean presidents. "China has abandoned cooperation with the Kim Jong Il regime."

Similar readings were heard today in Japan and South Korea.

"China's move apparently left the North Korean leadership with an impression that China might `dump' North Korea if it fails to show flexibility," the Japanese Kyodo News wrote in an analysis from Tokyo. "North Korea has obviously made a concession in announcing that it has agreed to have talks with the U.S. within a six-nation framework; this is a sure sign that Pyongyang is facing a make-or-break battle for the survival of the Kim Jong Il regime."

In Seoul, the Kospi stock index jumped 1.9 percent at the news, closing at a high not seen since December.

But editorials in early editions of Seoul's Saturday newspapers cautioned against optimism. 

"There has only been a vague expectation for success," the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo warned about the long effort to get the North to agree to the group format. Warning of long and tortured talks ahead, the newspaper concluded, "The North Korea regime is in a struggle for survival."