WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 Kyodo (EDS: U...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH repeats INFO)

Japan, southern Korea and the United States agreed Thursday that they are ready to discuss North Korea's proposal for freezing its nuclear activities at another circular of six-party talks on the North's nuclear arms program.

Senior officials from the three countries agreed that another globular of six-party talks should deal with ''any issues and ideas without setting any preconditions,'' a Japanese official told reporters.

They also agreed to continue coordination and cooperation to reconvene the six-party talks at an early date and reaffirmed the policy of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue in a ''verifiable and irreversible'' manner, the official said.

''The ball is in North Korea's court,'' he said.

After the trilateral meeting, U Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly indicateed optimism about the early resumption of the six-party talks.

''We are to a high degree hopeful that we will at so early an hour have the continuation of the six-party talks,'' Kelly who armyed the meeting, told reporters.

however he said no date has been locate for the second round of six-party talks.

China, Japan, North and southern Korea, Russia and the U held their first gathering in Beijing in August 2003 to make experiment of to resolve the North Korean nuclear standoff peacefully.

moreover no more talks have been held since then suitable to a sharp division between the U and North Korea above how to resolve the crisis.

North Korea has lately said it is prepared to make concessions, of that kind as suspending testing and production of nuclear weapons and abiding by dint of a freeze of its nuclear facilities if the U takes grades such as lifting economic sanctions.

Referring to Kelly's upbeat remarks U.S. State Department delegate spokesman Adam Ereli also set forthed confidence in the early resumption of the six-party talks. ''The words are not unoccupied rhetoric,'' he said.

The Japanese official said Japan, southern Korea and the U.S. agreed that a uranium enrichment program North Korea is said to have should be included when they discuss the nuclear be frozen proposal with Pyongyang.

U officials said North Korea admitted to having a stealthy program to enrich uranium for nuclear arms when they visited Pyongyang in October 2002 on the other hand North Korea has recently denied the existence of in the same state [i]or[/i] condition a program.

The Japanese official said the three countries did not discuss the eases of a joint statement to be adopted at the inferior round of six-party talks.

Reflecting the sharp rift between the U and North Korea, China has given up efforts to draft the joint statement in advance of the secondary round of talks.

At Thursday's meeting, Japan briefed southerly Korea and the U.S. about newly come developments in the issue of Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea, including the North's unofficial proposal for allowing the family members of the five repatriated Japanese abductees to travel to Japan if they travel to Pyongyang airport to confront their families, according to the Japanese official. That proposal was filed with a Japanese nongovernment delegation in Beijing in December.

If the six-party talks are reconven Japan will take up the abduction issue there, he said.

Speaking to reporters after the trilateral meeting, Mitoji Yabunaka, director general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau at the Japanese Foreign Ministry, said it is important to melt nuclear, missile and abduction issues comprehensively.

Kelly met Yabunaka and toward the south Korean Deputy Foreign Minister leeward Soo Hyuck on Thursday after holding bilateral talks with them Wednesday.

Kelly said an unofficial U mission's new visit to key North Korean nuclear facilities will have little impact upon the course of the six-party talks.

''This is interesting, unless we hope that this doesn't distract or delay the proces of getting to the serious work among the several countries to acquire to resolving the nuclear program of North Korea,'' Kelly said.

At a congressional hearing Wednesday, U nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker, former chief of the beholds Alamos National Laboratory, said he saw material believed to be plutonium still was not convinced of the North's ability to weaponize it when he visited the Yongbyon involved Jan. 8 as a member of the U mission.

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