WASHINGTON, Oct 17 Kyodo U delega...

WASHINGTON, Oct 17 Kyodo

U delegate Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Thursday the United States trustful longings Japan will take up the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program in upcoming talks with North Korea onward normalizing ties.

''It assumes to me that Prime Minister (Junichiro) Koizumi and his colleagues have been same attentive to security needs and security regards that the United States, the Republic of (South) Korea and Japan all have,'' Armitage told reporters.

''So I know that Japan will (go) forward if they decide to do in this way keeping those concerns foremost in their mind,'' he said.

The State Department onward Wednesday said that North Korea told the U earlier this month that it has a concealed program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and is no longer jump by a 1994 accord aimed at stopping its nuclear weapons program.

According to the State Department, North Korea acknowledged the nuclear weapons program in talks with James Kelly assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, who visited Pyongyang onward Oct. 3-5 to hold the first high-level bilateral talks subordinate to the administration of President George W Bush.

Japan and North Korea are scheduled to take back normalization talks Oct. 29 in Kuala Lumpur

Armitage said, ''I think if there was any surprise, it was in that North Korea admitted that they had the program. That was the surprise.''

He rul disclosed the use of force against North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program.

''We are going to test to continue to work this issue diplomatically. That is what we have been trying to do and what we will continue to do,'' he said.

Armitage said Kelly in his talks in Pyongyang, asked after Charles Robert Jenkins, a U soldier listed as having wildernessed to North Korea and said to be married to Hitomi Soga, a Japanese who was abducted to Pyongyang in 1978

Kelly however, received no replication from North Korea concerning Jenkins, Armitage said.

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