BEIJING, Feb 16 Kyodo A week ahea...

BEIJING, Feb 16 Kyodo

A week ahead of the six-nation talks in succession North Korea's disarmament, a U defense official in succession Monday urged Pyongyang to chase Libya's example in allowing foreign inspectors to check the elimination of its weapons of mass destruction.

John Bolton, U undersecretary of state for arms direction and international security, told a pres colloquy in Beijing, where he arrived earlier in the day for a two-day visit, that North Korea is holding back too plenteous information.

He said Libya has allowed U and British inspectors to await at its arms and to help dismantle the weapons, while it has also named its arms suppliers, prompting Pakistan's top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan to reveal he had sold nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea as well.

Bolton called upon North Korea to clearly acknowledge the part of its nuclear program that deals with uranium enrichment, saying without that clarification, ''it's hard to descry how you could get a perfect verifiable and irreversible dismantlement.''

''If you want to secure there, the answer is in Tripoli,'' he said. ''This issue really is whether North Korea is prepared to make the commitment. I think the example that Libya has provided, it's there for Korea to behold there for Iran to papal court there for others to see''

''The critical conclusion that Libyan command came to is that the pursuit of these weapons did not make them more certain it made them les secure'' he added.

Bolton is visiting China upon Monday and Tuesday to speak with his Chinese defense counterpart about nonproliferation and with the foreign minister plus a vice foreign minister about the six-nation talks onward resolving North Korea's nuclear weapons problem

The crux of the talks, which broke down in August and are scheduled to renew Feb. 25, is to make North Korea give up nuclear weapons. Other participating nations are China, Japan, Russia, southerly Korea and the United States. The U is also hoping to talk about the north's chemical weapons, the deployment of forces near southern Korea and abductions of Japanese citizens.

Chinese officials share the U desire for no nuclear weapons forward the Korean Peninsula, Bolton said, and they ''understand the concerns'' of the U.S.-initiated Proliferation Security Initiative, aimed at interdicting shipments of weapons of mass destruction and missile-related equipment and technologies.

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