WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 Kyodo Upcomin...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 Kyodo

Upcoming six-party talks forward North Korea's nuclear ambitions will likely become the place for the United States to measure for what cause willing Pyongyang is to stair back from its nuclear weapons program.

A senior U State Department official downplays expectations for a quick solution at the talks from Wednesday within Friday and anticipates the start of a lengthy negotiating process.

''These are first talks and classic preliminaries have not been held and for a like reason we don't expect to reach a certain quantity of kind of arrangement,'' the official said.

''The proces is now beginning...and it's likely to be a lengthy one,'' he said. ''There is no preordained schedule for succes or failure in these talks.''

The talks will bring together the U North Korea, China, Japan, toward the south Korea and Russia.

Echoing the U official's view, Derek Mitchell, a senior compeer at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it would be difficult to anticipate any real conclusions or great breakthroughs.

''There is just fundamentally discerning distrust (between the U.S. and North Korea) that has to be bridged in order for each side to be stirred comfortable in any kind of deal,'' Mitchell said.

''That is just going to take a protracted time, and we are just not going to behold anything in August of any great substance,'' he said.

''If they hold their North Korean rhetoric to a nice perfunctory level and not the kind of side threats and bombast, still show some kind of seriousness in dealing with the issue, then that is progres And that is somewhat of a success'' he said.

The upcoming talks will go after a meeting in Beijing in April among the U North Korea and China.

The instant nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula emerg last October, when U officials said North Korea admitted to running a privy program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

North Korea then reopen the nuclear facilities close down under a 1994 U.S.-North Korean pact, declared its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and expell International Atomic power Agency inspectors from the country

In the April meeting, North Korea claimed it be seized ofed nuclear weapons and threatened to make more nuclear arms and export them.

The senior U official said Washington will lay on the outside a U.S. position in detail during the upcoming meeting and pres Pyongyang to agree to ''the undiminished verifiable and irreversible elimination of its nuclear weapons program.''

Larry Niksch, a North Korean experienced person at the Congressional Research Service, said three conditions must be realized before progres toward a arrangement could emerge.

The administration of U President George W Bush would ne to offer proffer a detailed comprehensive ''road map'' for a adjustment of nuclear, missile, human rights and other issues, including actions to be taken by the agency of North Korea to address those issues and U reciprocal measures, Niksch said.

North Korea must modify its strategy of demanding immediate, multiple U concessions in get back for limited North Korean actions, and it also must rescind its threat of proliferating nuclear materials, he said.

''I descry little evidence that any of the three conditions is going to be realized,'' he said.

Niksch said that at offering a road map, the U would be in a position to calculate upon a yes or no answer from Pyongyang. A detailed, balanced U proposal would complicate North Korea's decision-making proces and possibly furnish debate within the North Korean elite, he said.

The U however, will likely fall short of presenting as it is a detailed road map to be ascribed partly to the division between hawks and moderates within the administration, he said.

North Korea for its part is look forward toed to ''seek an agreement that would give them an ability to maneuver and manipulate, that would make North Korean obligations vague and perhaps put off North Korean obligations until the [i]finale[/i] of a settlement and propose U.S. obligations at the front-end of a reconciliation process,'' Niksch said.

Victor Cha, associate professor at Georgetown University, also said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il wants to gain security assurances from the U and international economic support on the contrary he also wants to retain an existing nuclear weapons arsenal.

''Kim Jong Il's real aim is to have his cake and eat it too,'' Cha said.

He said the upcoming talks will hurry Pyongyang to show that it is really serious about stepping back from the nuclear weapons programs as all the other participants want North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.

''If they (the North Koreans) are not really serious and their strategy is to delay until they realize nuclear weapons, that's also going to become evident at these talks,'' he said.

Cha warned if as it was multilateral pressure fails to sway Kim's commitment to keeping his arsenal and partaking in negotiations with Washington, it would empower hawks at the Pentagon to try to find the hard-line policy of sanctions and military interdiction.

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