BEIJING, Aug. 12 Kyodo (EDS: ADDI...

BEIJING, Aug. 12 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING DETAILS)

North Korea has informed a certain quantity of participants in planned six-nation talks in succession the North's nuclear weapons program that it has agreed to keep possession of the talks from Aug. 27 to 29 in Beijing, sources related to Russia-North Korea relations said Tuesday.

Pyongyang also agreed to occupy the talks involving Japan, China, North and southward Korea, Russia and the United States at a vice-ministerial flat the sources said.

Russia and China have also envisioned holding vice-ministerial talks. A final decision will be made based upon a meeting Wednesday in Washington of director general-level officials from the U Japan and southward Korea.

South Korea's Yonhap moderns Agency, quoting a South Korean restraint source, also reported Tuesday that the multilateral talks will likely take place from Aug. 27

The unidentified official said the date forwarded on the Chinese Foreign Ministry was credible since it arrives after Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited the North to lay the groundwork for the negotiations, Yonhap said. He added that the dates of Aug. 27-29 had probably been agreed about by China and North Korea.

Still to be decided are the dates of separate U.S.-North Korea talks that Pyongyang pursues and a bilateral meeting between the North and Japan at which Tokyo wants to take up the issue of Japanese abducted according to Pyongyang.

Separate sources said that informal coordination upon the timing and other details of those separate meetings will likely be held following the North Korean delegation's awaited arrival in Beijing upon Aug. 26.

In the leadup to the six-way talks, the southern and North Korean vice foreign ministers are slated to restrain separate talks with Russian factor Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov.

Pyongyang agreed last week to take part in multilateral talks, after insisting previously forward bilateral negotiations with Washington to solve the tense standoff over its nuclear weapons program.

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