WASHINGTON, May 14 Kyodo (EDS: UP...

WASHINGTON, May 14 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH remarks BY RICE, FLEISCHER)

U President George W Bush and southern Korean President Roh Moo Hyun will come together Wednesday evening at the White House to discuss for what reason to resolve North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

''I'm certain they will talk about North Korea's attempt to blackmail the region end its development of a nuclear weapons program,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

Fleischer said Bush and Roh are also awaited to discuss bilateral economic relations and a realignment of U forces in southward Korea.

The summit issues at a critical juncture in North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship.

North Korea claimed in talks with the U and China in late April that it possesse nuclear weapons and has procedureed spent fuel rods, a influence that, if true, would allow Pyongyang to make recent nuclear arms.

North Korea also said earlier this week that a 1992 bilateral agreement with southward Korea to keep the Korean Peninsula released of nuclear weapons was nullified.

Although Bush has been reiterating his intention of resolving the nuclear standoff peacefully, southern Korea is concerned that Bush may adopt a hard-line policy at any time.

Roh wants to obtain assurance from Bush that he will not resort to the use of force in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.

In a newspaper interview last week, Roh said he will enumerate Bush that his doctrine of allowing preemptive strikes against states pursuing weapons of mass destruction should not be applied to the Korean Peninsula.

At a moderns conference on Wednesday, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said, ''The president not ever takes his options not upon the table in any circumstance.''

While leaving explain the possibility of holding another spherical of talks with North Korea and China, Rice accused Pyongyang of poisoning the atmosphere in the April meeting where she said the North Koreans used the occasion ''to state to threaten and to blackmail.''

''If there are to be further talks, the attitude ought to be more constructive,'' she said.

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