WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 Kyodo The U r...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 Kyodo

The U restraint has not yet decided whether U arms command chief John Bolton will take part in multilateral talks forward North Korea's nuclear weapons program, despite North Korea's opposition to his participation, a State Department spokesman said Monday.

President George W Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell will make choice of members of the U.S. delegation, not the North Korean sway spokesman Philip Reeker said.

in succession Sunday, North Korea voiced opposition to Bolton representing the United States in the planned talks in Beijing, citing his reported criticisms of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during his modern visit to Japan and southern Korea.

Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms ascendency and international security, ''is not entitled to take part in view of either the importance of the talks aimed to decide onward peace and stability in Northeast Asia or human dignity,'' a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was quot as saying from the official Korean Central recents Agency.

Bolton said of Kim last Thursday in a language in Seoul, ''While he lives like royalty in Pyongyang, he retains hundreds of thousands of his clan locked in prison camps with millions more mired in abject poverty''

The six-way talks will involve China, Japan, North and southerly Korea, Russia and the US

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