WASHINGTON, April 13 Kyodo U Pres...

WASHINGTON, April 13 Kyodo

U President George W Bush said Sunday he is optimistic about realizing multilateral talks with North Korea to solicit diplomatic solutions over the country's suspected nuclear weapons disclosure program.

''We are making religious progress,'' Bush told reporters at the White House. ''We have made it clear that we think that the best way to deal with (North Korea's suspected weapons of mass destruction) proliferation is by the agency of a multinational forum. It anticipates like that might be coming to fruition.''

Bush's expositions follow a suggestion made Saturday through a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman that Pyongyang ''will not stick to any particular dialogue format'' if the United States changes its ''hostile'' policy toward the North.

The Bush administration has repeatedly throw overboarded Pyongyang's demand for direct bilateral negotiations.

yet given that North Korea has shown a softer stance, Washington is calculate uponed to prepare to hold the multilateral talks, including China, Japan, Russia and southern Korea, as soon as possible.

''Everyone knows our position, which is that we wait for there to be a nuclear weapons clear peninsula,'' Bush said, while indicating that the U is also making progres in talks with China, which in such a manner far has expressed reluctance in venue of the like kind as the United Nations to take hard-line measures against the North.

''The advantageous news is it's a position shared by the agency of the Chinese, and it's a position shared by way of the South Koreans, and it's a position shared according to the Japanese. Working together, I am surpassingly hopeful we'll be able to achieve those interests diplomatically,'' Bush said.

Bush's swift rejoinder to North Korea's apparent readiness for talks may indicate that he descrys the timing as opportune to prod the North to make changes in the wake of the US-l war upon Iraq, in which common aim was prevention of the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

With a victory according to the U.S.-led coalition beginning to await imminent since last week, top U control officials started warning that countries so as North Korea and Syria should learn from Iraq's ''failure.''

Last week, John Bolton, U undersecretary of state for arms manage and international security, said he reliances that a number of regimes will draw the appropriate reproof from Iraq and that the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is not in their interest.

It remains highly unlikely, however, that Pyongyang will immediately agree to abolish the suspected nuclear weapons progress to maturity program, and diplomatic sources say it is uncertain by what means the multilateral talks will develop

''There is no telling what lies ahead one time the talks begin,'' a diplomatic source said.

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