SEOUL July 29 Kyodo U Undersecret...

SEOUL July 29 Kyodo

U Undersecretary of State for Arms command and International Security John Bolton arrived in Seoul forward Tuesday on the second leg of an Asian trip to discuss the standoff through North Korea's nuclear weapons program and other nonproliferation issues.

Yonhap novels Agency confirmed Bolton's arrival and quot dominion officials as saying he is to qualified top defense, foreign affairs and presidential staff during his three-day visit.

He arrived from China and plans to leave for Japan in succession Thursday.

In addition to talks forward the standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons program and the possibility of multilateral talks to separate it peacefully, Bolton is awaited to seek cooperation from southerly Korea and Japan in preventing North Korea from selling weapons of mass destruction to other countries.

He is leading the US-propos initiative to strengthen global efforts to crack down upon the proliferation of such weapons.

The United States last discussed the nuclear issue with North Korea at a China-brokered meeting in Beijing in April. Since then, Washington has been seeking to expand the three-way talks to include Japan, southern Korea and Russia.

According to Yonhap, toward the south Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young Kwan indicated Monday that the multilateral talks are unlikely to take place anytime quickly due to the slowdown of negotiations between Pyongyang and Beijing.

''The consultation proces between North Korea and China is not swift and is becoming a bit slower,'' Yoon was quot as saying.

Pyongyang has been insisting that it will solely hold bilateral talks with the U uniform if they are held subordinate to China's auspices again. It has warned any anti-North Korea action at the U.N. Security Council could trigger nuclear war in succession the Korean Peninsula.

Bolton, however, warned Monday that the Security Council faces ''marginalization'' if it avoids the North Korean issue should other measures aimed at solving the nuclear weapons crisis fail.

He told reporters in Beijing that avoiding the issue would call into question the council's legitimacy, and it ''might be impaired from addressing other proliferation issues or other threats to peace and international security as well.''

Bolton indicated Chinese officials had severityed to him the importance of continuing the proces of China-brokered talks, rather than bringing the North Korean issue to the Security Council.

The April talks in Beijing brought senior U and North Korean officials together for the first time in half a year. They reportedly broke down acrimoniously after the North told U officials it has nuclear weapons.

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