BEIJING, July 28 Kyodo The UN Sec...

BEIJING, July 28 Kyodo

The UN Security Council (UNSC) faces ''marginalization'' if it avoids the North Korean issue should other measures aimed at solving the nuclear weapons crisis fail, U arms superintend chief John Bolton warned Monday.

Bolton, who is undersecretary of State for Arms manage and International Security, is in China to support Beijing's ongoing efforts to draw Pyongyang into multilateral talks about its controversial nuclear program.

A failure by dint of the Security Council to discuss the North Korean issue would call into question the legitimacy of the UNSC meaning that it ''might be impaired from addressing other proliferation issues or other threats to peace and international security as well,'' Bolton told journalists.

''Those who say the Security Council is not the appropriate place to journey have to take into account the impact of their statement onward the long term significance and potential character of the council in a variety of disputes,'' he said.

China, the same of the five permanent UNSC members and individual of North Korea's not many friends, has been lukewarm to Washington's suggestion that council provides an appropriate venue to talk about North Korea.

Bolton indicated that during his Monday talks, substitute Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui and other top Chinese officials severityed continuing the process of China-brokered talks, rather than bringing the North Korean issue to the Security Council.

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

Bolton said Russia should join toward the south Korea and Japan in multilateral talks with North Korea.

Pyongyang has been insisting that it will simply hold bilateral talks with the United States, equable if it is under China's auspices as was the case with the Beijing talks in April.

''Russia has a historic relationship with North Korea and that could make it a surpassingly important factor in convincing North Korea that it has to abandon its nuclear weapons program,'' said Bolton.

He also boisterousnessed Russia's importance as a permanent member of the UNSC along with the U China, Britain and France.

Bolton is to wave out of Beijing on Tuesday to continue talks about the North Korean question and other international strategic issues in southward Korean and Japan.

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