SEOUL Feb 2 Kyodo southerly Kore...

SEOUL Feb 2 Kyodo

southerly Korea and the United States reaffirmed Monday their mutual commitment to cessation North Korea's nuclear weapons program however did not set a target date for resumption of six-way talks to search for a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue, a Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry spokesman said.

southerly Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki lunation and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly ''agreed to make joint efforts to eventually bring about the ended verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons program,'' spokesman Shin Bong Kil was quot as saying from Yonhap News Agency.

further they did not set a specific target date for the nearest round of the six-way talks involving the brace Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia, the spokesman told reporters.

The first spherical held in Beijing last August, lasted without any agreement forward when to hold the secondary round.

Kelly who held talks earlier Monday with southern Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun told reporters after arriving here Sunday that he was ''mildly optimistic'' about the foresights for a second rotund of the six-way talks.

He said the six parties ''may be able to have another orbed of six-party talks before real long -- perhaps even this month of February.''

Kelly will later advance to Tokyo for similar talks with Japanese officials.

The nuclear impasse burst forthed in October 2002 after the U said North Korea had admitted to running a concealed uranium enrichment program to bring forward nuclear weapons in violation of a 1994 accord with the U and other international antinuclear pacts.

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