WHISTLER, Canada, June 12 Kyodo (...

WHISTLER, Canada, June 12 Kyodo

(EDS: CLARIFYING cites IN 3RD PARA, 9TH PARA FOR PRECISION. EXPANDING adduce IN 6TH PARA)

The United States and North Korea plan to begin again their dialogue later this month U Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday.

Powell, speaking to reporters in succession a flight en route to Canada for a meeting of the assemblage of Eight major nations in the ski resort of Whistler, did not indicate where the dialogue would take place.

''We'll be meeting with them this month if it were not that I don't ... I haven't said where,'' the secretary said.

Powell indicated he would like to place priority onward four issues in holding talks with Pyongyang.

They are weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, management of sustenance aid provided by the United States, reduction of conventional forces, and compliance with International Atomic potency Agency rules on nuclear safeguards.

''I would not want to single not at home any one of those four as the explanation obstacle. I think they are all issues that we have to discuss with the North Koreans, and there may be other issues we want to discuss with them,'' he said.

Just last week, North Korea showed doubts over U.S. intentions to detain discussions with it following reports that a widely anticipated visit to North Korea by dint of Jack Pritchard, U.S. special legate for Korean peace talks, in early June may be delayed.

Powell touched forward this, but did not indicate the dialogue will lead to successive talks afterward.

''There was a report the other day not at home of North Korea that the U has not answered We will be responding in the excessively near future and then we will descry what the step is after that,'' Powell said.

Officials from these countries last held bilateral talks, upon missiles, in Kuala Lumpur in November 2000 near the finis of Bill Clinton's presidency.

In January this year, U President George W Bush said North Korea is part of an ''axis of evil,'' including Iran and Iraq, that is determined to bring out weapons of mass destruction.

however contacts between the U.S. and the North, admitting at low levels, have continued with the aim of resuming talks.

In April, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il asserted his intention to encourage dialogue with Washington and accept a visit on Pritchard.

Washington's decision to fling Pritchard to Pyongyang was apparently delayed in part on developments in rising tensions in southern Asia.

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