SEOUL July 24 Kyodo southward Kor...

SEOUL July 24 Kyodo

southward Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun said Thursday that multilateral talks in succession the dispute over North Korea's nuclear weapons program are likely to be held at an early date, Yonhap of recent origins Agency reported.

''Momentum to keep possession of multilateral talks is being sustained and...a firm atmosphere has been created for multilateral talks to be held at an early date,'' Jeong was quot as saying in a meeting of the advisory panel held to discuss issues relating to national unification.

Jeong added that the southerly Korean government's position on the nuclear talks is to achieve substantive follows even while the format of the talks is also important, Yonhap said.

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

In Washington, a senior administration official said Wednesday that five-country talks addressing North Korea's nuclear arms programs are mostly likely to take place in early September.

The U within China, has sounded out North Korea onward its position accepting three-way talks involving the U the North and China, however said these must be followed the same day according to five-way talks that include Japan and southern Korea, the official told Kyodo of recent origins on condition of anonymity.

North Korea has demanded bilateral talks with the U on the contrary recent news reports indicate the North may have assuageed its stance and may agree to the propos multilateral format.

The nuclear standoff flared in October last year when the U said North Korea had admitted to running a disguised uranium-enrichment program to effect nuclear weapons in violation of a 1994 antinuclear pact with the US

Earlier this month North Korea told U officials that it had complet reprocessing 8000 reactor firing material rods, which could make it possible to show about five or six nuclear bomb in addition to the single or two nuclear weapons U officials believe Pyongyang already has.

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