Seoul: North Korea's late founder Kim Il Sung swore to Beijing in the 1960s that he opposed the development of nuclear weapons, a report said today, citing a newly declassified Chinese document.

In a letter Kim wrote to then-Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in late October 1964, Kim, father of current leader Kim Jong Il, said North Korea supports banning nuclear weapons and would "unite with the peace-loving people around the world" to denuclearise the Korean peninsula, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.

Kim Il Sung also said in the letter that Pyongyang would continue to fight the atomic threat from the United States and Washington's plot to provoke a nuclear war, the Yonhap report said.

Yonhap said the letter, obtained from China's Foreign Ministry archive, reaffirms North Korean claims that Kim always wanted a nuclear-free Korea. Officials in the ministry's archive department said files from 1961 and 1965 were declassified last week.

China fought alongside North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War and remains Pyongyang's only major ally and a key donor of food and energy.

Kim Il Sung died in 1994, turning over leadership to his son, but the father remains North Korea's "eternal President."

Despite his wishes, Pyongyang steadfastly has pursued atomic weapons, saying it needs a deterrent against nuclear threats from the United States. The regime carried out a nuclear test blast in October 2006.
Source : PTI