US says 6-way Korea talks may resume in July

TOKYO, June 20 (Reuters) Washington's top nuclear envoy said today stalled six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear arms programme are likely to resume in early July, but Pyongyang must keep its promise to shut down a nuclear reactor.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Pyongyang would need to move on shutting down its nuclear reactor as agreed under a Feb. 13 deal clinched at the last round of the six-party talks before they could resume.

''We don't want to have the six-party talks before we've gotten going on shutting down the reactor,'' Hill told reporters after meeting Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi.

''The Chinese have some ideas about maybe we could do something early in July,'' Hill said when asked about the timing of the next round of six-party talks, He said he would rather the meeting not coincide with the US Independence Day holiday, though, adding: ''I would like it immediately after the Fourth of July.'' China has hosted previous rounds of the talks that also bring together the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia.

Hill, who visited Beijing and Seoul this week before coming to Tokyo, said Washington would need to consult other six-party members before they all convened for the next round. He added that he had kept contact with North Korean officials through their United Nations mission in New York.

''We have been in touch through the New York channel with the DPRK,'' he said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Hill said he hoped that the next round of the six-party talks would lead to a meeting of foreign ministers of the member states when they gather in August for a regional security forum in the Philippines.

''It would be done around the ARF,'' he said, referring to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to be held in Manila on August 2.

ARF is the Asia-Pacific's main security grouping. In addition to the 10 members of ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations), it brings together other countries, including all of the six-party talks participants.

North Korea said on Saturday it would re-admit inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as required under the February deal. This followed signs that some million in North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank for nearly two years had started to make its way back to the North.

An unidentified North Korean diplomatic source, quoted by Russia's Interfax news agency on Monday, said the North would seal the reactor at Yongbyon, about 100 km north of Pyongyang, in the second half of July.

Pyongyang had missed a mid-April deadline to shut the Yongbyon reactor because of the feud over its funds, blocked over US allegations of North Korean involvement in dollar counterfeiting and other illicit activity.

''First of all it is important for North Korea to carry out the initial steps,'' Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in Tokyo today. ''Of course North Korea is also not showing a sincere attitude with regard to the abduction problem. We always keep our window open for dialogue,'' he added.

Pyongyang admitted to kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s and has returned five of them, saying the other eight are dead. Tokyo wants more information on the victims and others it says were probably abducted, while Pyongyang says the matter is settled.

Reuters AK GC1634