BEIJING, Aug. 1 Kyodo (EDS: UPDAT...

BEIJING, Aug. 1 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING REACTION IN WASHINGTON, 3RD-4TH PARAS)

North Korea said Friday it has propos to the United States holding six-nation talks forward its controversial nuclear program and advancing bilateral negotiations with Washington at the venue

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, in a statement distributed at the official Korean Central recently made knowns Agency, said North Korea propos the formula in a meeting with the U side in strange York on Thursday.

In Washington, the White House confirmed Friday that North Korea has agreed to discuss its nuclear weapons programs in a multilateral format yet said the timing of the meeting has nevertheless to be decided.

''In metes of the actual details and timing, that is still being worked not at home in consultation with our friends and allies in the region,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

The North Korea spokesman did not mention the countries involved in the multilateral setting, if it were not that apparently referred to China, Japan, North and southern Korea, Russia and the US

North Korea had previously insisted forward bilateral negotiations on the nuclear issue with the U nevertheless Washington rebuffed Pyongyang's demand, arguing that its nuclear ambitions mystify a strategic threat to its Asian neighbors and that Japan and southward Korea in particular, along with China and Russia should be involved in the talks.

upon Thursday, the U.S. State Department and the Russian Foreign Ministry said separately that North Korea has accepted the proposal for multilateral talks forward the dispute arising from its nuclear exhibition program.

Pyongyang also transported to Seoul on Thursday afternoon its formal acceptance of the propos six-way talks onward the nuclear problem, a southerly Korean Foreign Ministry official said Friday.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told reporters in Tokyo onward Friday that the U.S. has informed Japan that the talks are likely to take place in Beijing.

The nuclear impasse be in eruptioned last October, when the U said that the communist land had admitted to having an uranium enrichment program for use in weapons. North Korea then expell international nuclear inspectors and declared its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a global nuclear arms repress treaty.

In China-brokered talks with the U in Beijing in April, North Korea told U diplomats that the rural parts possesses nuclear arms, intensifying tensions in succession the Korean Peninsula.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo novels International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group