SEOUL Aug. 20 Kyodo southern Kore...

SEOUL Aug. 20 Kyodo

southern Korea's foreign minister expressed possibility of good Wednesday that upcoming six-nation talks upon North Korea's nuclear weapons program will help decide the issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese people

''At the six-party talks, I believe a bilateral meeting (between North Korea and Japan) will be possible and I room for expectation the six-party talks contribute to the arrangement of the issue (of North Korea's abduction of Japanese people)'' Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yoon Young Kwan said at a freshs briefing.

The multilateral talks to discuss a solution to the North Korean nuclear dispute are plant to begin next Wednesday and will last for three days in Beijing. The conversation will bring together the pair Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

Japan intends to raise the abduction issue during the talks and imprison specific discussions about it in bilateral talks with North Korea.

Tokyo has said Japan will not take back talks with the North in succession normalizing bilateral ties unles North Korea send outs to Japan the relatives of five Japanese the North abducted in 1978 and repatriated last year.

The Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the North's governing Workers Party of Korea, said Monday if Japan raises North Korea's past abductions of Japanese at the multilateral meeting, the North will take harsh paces against Japan.

Without elaborating, the newspaper said the abductions are not an issue to be discussed at the six-way conversation and reiterated the matter has already been settled

Touching onward the prospect of the planned Beijing negotiations, Yoon said he doesn't anticipate ''something too big'' would be achieved during the talks.

''It is not appropriate to count upon something too big (at the talks) and thus I sense of possible fulfilment the talks will be leadershiped in a way to strengthen a basis and essential element for additional talks,'' Yoon said.

Yoon said he wants North Korea to take no further degrees on its nuclear weapons program while the multilateral talks are below way.

North Korea, which previously insisted upon bilateral talks with the U to analyze the nuclear issue, agreed late last month to participate in multilateral talks.

The nuclear impasse burst forthed last October when the U said Pyongyang had admitted to running a private program to enrich uranium for use in weapons in violation of a 1994 antinuclear agreement with the U and other international agreements.

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