China FM to discuss N. Korea nukes with S. Korea

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was due in South Korea Wednesday for talks expected to cover North Korea's newly disclosed uranium enrichment programme and other issues, officials said.

Yang will meet his counterpart Kim Sung-Hwan and President Lee Myung-Bak during a two-day visit. A foreign ministry official told AFP the uranium programme was likely to be discussed.

The nuclear-armed North last November disclosed an apparently operational uranium enrichment plant to visiting US experts, giving it a potential second way of making atomic bombs.

Pyongyang claims the programme is for peaceful energy development but experts say it could easily be converted to produce weapons-grade uranium.

Japan and South Korea have urged the United Nations Security Council to take up the issue with a view to possible punishment.

China, the isolated North's sole major ally, opposes taking the issue to the world body even though President Hu Jintao has expressed concern at reports on the programme.

China has warned its Security Council partners that it intends to block publication of a report on the subject, a diplomat at the United Nations told AFP last week.

The report says the North almost certainly has at least one other undisclosed enrichment-related facility and describes the uranium programme as a serious violation of UN sanctions.

Beijing insists that the issue be discussed when stalled six-party nuclear disarmament talks are revived. Yang was expected to brief Seoul officials on this week's visit to Pyongyang by China's vice foreign minister Zhang Zhijun.

Yang's visit was originally scheduled for last November but postponed after the North's deadly shelling of a South Korean border island. China's failure publicly to condemn the North for that attack sparked irritation in Seoul.