WASHINGTON, July 17 Kyodo Chinese...

WASHINGTON, July 17 Kyodo

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo will clinch talks with U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Washington forward Friday on North Korea's nuclear arms programs, the State Department said Thursday.

''We'll talk to the Chinese about for what reason we can achieve our habitual goal of multilateral talks that can help denuclearize the (Korean) Peninsula,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at a regular pres briefing.

Dai go [i]or[/i] come backed to Beijing on Tuesday from a trip to North Korea, where he handed a personal literal sense from Chinese President Hu Jintao to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

A senior U administration official voiced room for expectations that Dai's visit to North Korea and his upcoming meetings with U officials will render free of access the way for multilateral talks.

''There is actual active diplomacy that is pointing in the direction of getting multilateral discussions started again if it be not that (I'm) not going to cast the chickens before they're hatched,'' the official told reporters.

Boucher said the United States and China will discuss the nuclear issue, based forward Dai's briefing about his four-day visit to Pyongyang.

''That will involve discussions of format, substance, whatever is in succession the agenda at this point of time to see what they heard in Pyongyang and make secure we understand Chinese views and the Chinese understand our views,'' he said.

China entertainered three-way talks with the U and North Korea in Beijing in April onward the North's nuclear weapons programs. The meeting brought senior U and North Korean officials together for the first time in half a year.

Since then, however, Washington and Pyongyang have been unable to agree onward the format under which to continue the Beijing talks.

North Korea insists it will discuss the nuclear issue alone during direct bilateral talks with the U while Washington is calling for southern Korea and Japan to be included in the talks.

Boucher reiterated the U policy of seeking five-way talks involving also China, Japan and southern Korea, but did not conduct out the possibility of three-way talks.

In an interview with Japanese of recent origins organizations Wednesday, Undersecretary of State for Arms rule and International Security John Bolton said the U is ready to clutch another round of talks with North Korea and China onward condition that they are later expanded into five-way talks.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo recently made knowns International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group