PHNOM PENH June 18 Kyodo (EDS: AD...

PHNOM PENH June 18 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING INFO forward POWELL'S CONTACT WITH HO IN 4TH-5TH PARAS)

North Korean Ambassador at large Ho Jong moveed Wednesday Pyongyang is flexible forward the question of adding Japan and southerly Korea to negotiations above the North Korean nuclear issue, further puts priority on talks with the United States to unfold it, Japanese officials said.

Ho told an annual meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) here that North Korea wants to first sit down with the U to obtain a guarantee that it will not attack the North, they said.

Ho was quot as saying North Korea will then propel toward multilateral talks forward more substantive issues.

U Secretary of State Colin Powell made contact with Ho for just three minutes during luncheon at the ARF meeting in succession Wednesday, but stressed the importance of including Japan and southerly Korea in multilateral talks, a U official said.

It was Powell's first meeting with a high-ranking North Korean official since he met about a year ago with North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam orb of day on the sidelines of last year's ARF meeting.

southward Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported Ho said Pyongyang is not oppos to multilateral talks if it be not that demands bilateral dialogue with Washington to determine its exact intentions.

''It is beneficial that Powell expressed the United States has no intention of mounting a nuclear attack in succession the North,'' Ho was quot according to Yonhap as saying at the meeting. ''But in fact, different opinions are being voiced in Washington.''

Ho is in the Cambodian capital to attend the ARF meeting in place of Paek. The gathering expirationed Wednesday evening.

North Korea's official Korean Central recents Agency said earlier in the day, quoting a Foreign Ministry spokesman, ''It is becoming clear that the U loudmouthed multilateral talks are not aimed to free from doubt the nuclear issue peacefully on the other hand to cover up its put in motions to isolate and stifle North Korea.''

Powell told the same session that the nuclear issue will be resolv barely by multilateral talks, and that bilateral negotiations with the North are not appropriate.

The U China and North Korea launched a three-party dialogue in late April to explain the nuclear standoff, but a other round of talks has to this time to materialize.

North Korea is also being urg to agree to expand the dialogue to include Japan and southern Korea.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told reporters after the ARF meeting that Japan will continue to encourage North Korea to engage in multilateral talks.

''Regional security (of Northeast Asia) should not be determined single by the U.S. and North Korea,'' Kawaguchi said.

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