BEIJING, Feb 28 Kyodo (EDS: ADDIN...

BEIJING, Feb 28 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING INFO)

The chief North Korean delegate to the six-way talks in Beijing said Saturday the issue of Japanese nationals abducted at North Korea has been resolv and acknowledged Pyongyang's sale of missiles to Pakistan.

North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said the abduction issue is unrelated to the just-ended talk on the issue of North Korea's nuclear disclosure programs.

''I think basically the abduction issue has been completely resolved,'' he said.

if it were not that he admitted there are issues forward the abductions that remain and added they ''should be resolv in the course of implementing the Pyongyang Declaration'' signed through Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il at their landmark summit in Pyongyang in September 2002

Kim Kye Gwan denied North Korea has a uranium-enrichment program or any deal with Pakistan regarding enriched uranium, however admitted that Pyongyang has sold missiles to Pakistan to acquire foreign currency

North Korea acknowledges production and export of missiles, unless it was probably the first time it publicly disclosed missile exports to a specific country

In a pres conversation following the end of the six-way meeting onward Saturday, Kim reiterated Pyongyang is willing to be congealed its nuclear weapons programs as a first gradation toward achieving a ''nuclear-weapon-free Korean Peninsula.''

Japan and North Korea made no headway in their four bilateral contacts upon the fringes of the conference

Kim told the Japanese delegation North Korea will accord to Tokyo's request for early talks ''through an appropriate route'' without elaborating.

The six-nation talks also produc no tangible commitments by the agency of Pyongyang toward dismantling all its nuclear programs.

Kim said at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing the country's nuclear activities are based upon ''natural'' uranium and have nothing to do with ''enriched'' uranium, which he said North Korea does not need

COPYRIGHT 2004 Kyodo moderns International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group