North Korea's top nuclear negotiator in Beijing

TOKYO, Aug 11 (Reuters) North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan arrived in Beijing today, for possible talks with his US counterpart ahead of next week's meeting aimed at denuclearising the reclusive state, Kyodo news agency said.

Last month, energy-starved North Korea shut its Soviet era reactor and a plant that makes arms-grade plutonium in exchange for 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel as part of a February 13 disarmament deal struck by the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

The next step of the disarmament deal, hammered out between the six parties calls on Pyongyang to ''disable'' its nuclear facilities. But the last round of nuclear talks ended last month without a target date for disabling the facilities.

US chief negotiator Christopher Hill would arrive in Beijing on Monday, an embassy spokeswoman said, ahead of a six-party working group meeting in Shenyang from Thursday to discuss ways to denuclearise North Korea.

The spokeswoman declined to give further details.

Kyodo said that a team of U.S. nuclear experts had visited North Korea including the Yongbyon complex at the heart of its nuclear programme and confirmed that it was no longer operational.

''We had an opportunity to visit Yongbyon,'' Siegfried Hecker, co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, told reporters in Beijing, according to Kyodo.

''What we were able to ascertain is that indeed, the facilities in Yongbyon are no longer operational.'' The United States said on Monday there could be a ministerial meeting as early as September between North Korea and five other countries to advance the disarmament process.

REUTERS SLD KP1340