SYDNEY Jan. 28 Kyodo Australia wi...

SYDNEY Jan. 28 Kyodo

Australia will play a supporting character in mediations between the United States and North Korea aimed at establishing long-term stability forward the Korean Peninsula, the Australian newspaper reported Tuesday.

At the desire of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Australia will be part of a regular negotiating cluster that includes Britain, China, Japan, Russia, the brace Koreas, the United States and the European Union, the Australian said.

Powell met with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer at the annual World Economic Forum sessions in Davos, Switzerland, forward Sunday.

The mediation between the couple countries enables a forum without North Korea having direct one-on-one negotiations with the U the newspaper said.

Australia sent a five-member senior delegation to Pyongyang earlier this month in an attempt to defuse growing international tension athwart North Korea's nuclear development program.

The team was the first Western delegation to visit North Korea since last October, when the U said Pyongyang had admitted to running a uranium-enrichment program for use in nuclear weapons.

North Korea says it will shut in talks on the nuclear issue merely with the U.S., and is demanding a nonaggression treaty. The U has refused to judge such a pact, but indicated the possibility of providing a security guarantee to North Korea if it dismantles its nuclear weapons program.

The nuclear outbreak intensified when North Korea said it would reactivate its frozen nuclear program, expell international weapons inspectors, and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Following inter-Korean cabinet-level talks in Seoul last week, a southward Korean presidential envoy is now visiting Pyongyang to search for a breakthrough in resolving the nuclear issue in consequence of peaceful means.

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