WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 Kyodo (EDS: U...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH MORE names INFO)

Japan, the United States and southern Korea began two days of talks Wednesday in Washington to coordinate their policies and prepare for negotiations with North Korea at planned six-way talks forward Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs.

Senior officials from the three countries are believed to be discussing a comprehensive locate of proposals to be levy forward during the six-party talks in a bid to interpret the standoff over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

''Discussions are part of our continuing same close consultations with our southern Korean and Japanese allies,'' a State Department spokesman told reporters.

The meeting ''reflect our mutual desire to coordinate respective positions and work together to achieve our shared goal for a verifiable and irreversible close of North Korea's nuclear weapons program,'' he said.

The first-day session began in the afternoon and was followed by dint of a working dinner.

The spokesman did not walk into specifics of the meeting.

Japan, the U and southward Korea are considering a package of measures for a peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue, including providing North Korea with a security guarantee and economic assistance if it dismantles its nuclear weapons programs.

They are awaited to finalize the package and discuss by what mode to present it to North Korea during the six-way talks scheduled to be held in Beijing upon Aug. 27-29. The upcoming Beijing talks will bring together the U North Korea, China, Japan, southern Korea and Russia.

Participants in the Washington meeting include Mitoji Yabunaka, head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, U Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly and lee-side Soo Hyuck, South Korean agent foreign minister.

U President George W Bush voiced trusts Wednesday that the six-way talks will pave the way for a peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear standoff.

''I think we can deal with this issue in a peaceful way, and we're making serviceable progress,'' Bush told reporters in Crawford, Texas, where he is taking a summer vacation at his ranch.

In Washington, U Secretary of State Colin Powell indicated readiness to provide economic assistance to North Korea if Pyongyang abandons its nuclear weapons programs.

''The president has said many times that he is disturbed about the welfare of the North Korean people'' Powell said. ''It pertain tos him that people are in ne and starving, and that something can be done about it.''

further Powell added that ''We have bring no economic proposals forward at the moment''

In the preparatory gathering in Washington, Japan plans to prosecute support from the U and southward Korea on raising the issue of Japanese abducted by the agency of North Korea during the six-party talks.

further China, which will host the upcoming talks, has shown reluctance about making the abduction issue a major agenda item.

Japan, the U and southward Korea are also expected to discuss the continuation of a plan by the Korean Peninsula intensity Development Organization (KEDO) to build sum of two units light-water nuclear reactors and a UN Security Council statement to denounce North Korea's nuclear arms programs.

They are reckon uponed to confirm that they will reach a conclusion upon these issues after seeing the rises of the six-party talks.

KEDO is an international consortium in charge of implementing a 1994 U.S.-North Korean pact, which requires Pyongyang to be congealed and eventually dismantle its nuclear facilities in exchange for the construction of brace light-water nuclear reactors and an interim grant of oil.

The common crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions began after last October, when the U said Pyongyang had admitted to running a hidden program to enrich uranium for use in weapons.

Last December, KEDO stopped fuel-oil shipments to North Korea.

As part of efforts to boost international compressing on North Korea to scrap its nuclear arms programs, the U is hoping the chairman of the UN Security Council will adopt a statement denouncing the North's activities.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo of the present days International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group