Hopes rise for North Korea nuclear talks

North Korea has stayed silent on whether it will respond to the flurry of diplomacy and join its dialogue partners on the sidelines of a regional security conference, which the issue is expected to dominate.

But in a sign of the growing optimism, Chinese deputy foreign minister Wu Dawei said late Monday that a session of the six-way talks had been provisionally scheduled for Friday in Kuala Lumpur.

"The time currently being planned is the afternoon of the 28th, but it is still under negotiation," he said. "At the moment, all sides are still making efforts but whether it will happen or not, nobody can tell yet."

China is seen as the biggest influence on North Korea, although the hermit state snubbed Beijing's appeals earlier this month and launched a volley of ballistic missile tests that inflamed the region.

"We have agreed that we will encourage together the resumption of six-party talks," Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said Tuesday after a meeting with his South Korean counterpart Ban Ki-Moon.

"We both feel that we should treasure the consensus reached at the six-party talks. That is, the nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and its peace and stability. That is the aim of our joint efforts."

The alliance of China and South Korea represents a new strategy in attempts to get communist North Korea to the talks, which was derailed in November after Pyongyang objected to a US-ordered freeze on its bank accounts.

"Even if North Korea launched missiles to create tensions and difficult situations, South Korea and China have closely cooperated to maintain the situation properly," Ban told Li at the meeting.

North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-Sun is scheduled to arrive in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday for the 26-nation ASEAN Regional Forum security meeting the following day.

Both China and South Korea rejected the possibility of going ahead with a five-way discussion without North Korea. The nuclear talks group the two Koreas, China, Japan, the United States and Russia.