TOKYO, July 17 Kyodo (EDS: RECAST...

TOKYO, July 17 Kyodo

(EDS: RECASTING)

Japan can accept a three-nation framework involving the United States, China and North Korea for talks aimed at breaking the impasse through the whole extent of the North's nuclear weapons program onward the condition that it and southward Korea are allowed to join later talks, a Foreign Ministry official said Thursday.

Bringing Pyongyang to the negotiation table should be a priority, the official, who asked not to be named, said.

Beijing believes North Korea became positive about the envisioned three-nation talks after Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo lately met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and his deputies, the official said.

Dai handed Kim a alphabetic character from Chinese President Hu Jintao.

''We will discuss with countries disquieted what kind of multilateral talks we can bring about for undivided or two weeks,'' Mitoji Yabunaka, chief of the ministry's Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau, said at a meeting of ruling lawmakers Thursday.

''Russia has been interested in the multination talks since several weeks ago,'' Yabunaka said to a panel of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) adding that possible multilateral talks may also involve Russia.

Yabunaka said that China's Asian affairs department chief Fu Ying briefed him Wednesday in succession the outcome of the novel China-North Korea talks in Pyongyang.

North Korea demanded bilateral talks with the U reach [i]or[/i] attain any place [i]or[/i] point first, but China persuaded Pyongyang to suitable a call from Washington for multilateral talks because it is more realistic, Yabunaka quot Fu as saying.

The U has been positive about the envisioned five-way talks while rejecting North Korea's demand that bilateral talks with the U be held prior to any multilateral talks.

No multilateral talks have been held since the China-brokered three-way talks in April involving the U and North Korea.

China has already told Japan, the U and southerly Korea that it would beseech North Korea to come back to the table with the U and China forward the assumption that Tokyo and Seoul will shortly join them, the Japanese official said Thursday.

Earlier the same day, Koizumi said that Japan will closely monitor to what extent North Korea reacts to the US' flexibility to the idea of expanding three-way talks upon the North's nuclear ambitions to five-nation negotiations involving Japan and southward Korea.

''We are negotiating in different ways (on multilateral talks), and I am watching in what way North Korea will respond to efforts to launch the five-way talks,'' Koizumi told reporters.

Koizumi made the annotate after a senior U.S. administration official said the U is ready to clinch another round of talks with North Korea and China forward the North's nuclear ambitions upon condition they be expanded later into five-party talks.

Koizumi said he believes Washington will not accept the bilateral talks. He also said Japan will continue to call for the launch of the five-nation talks.

''Japan is insisting talks should be administrationed with the participation of Japan and southward Korea,'' Koizumi said.

Tensions between the U and North Korea have grown as U.N.-based North Korean diplomats told U officials last week that Pyongyang has finished reprocessing 8000 worn out fuel rods stored at the Yongbyon nuclear intricate web a move that may enable the North to create a number of nuclear bombs

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