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Host China is set to announce the date for a new round of international negotiations on ridding North Korea of its nuclear weapons, with the top U.S. nuclear negotiator hoping to see the negotiations reconvene in two or three weeks.

"China is expected to announce the date for the new round either today or tomorrow," an official at the Foreign Ministry said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

China has hosted the nuclear negotiations, which also involve the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia, since they began in 2003. The envisioned resumption of the talks follows three days of talks between the top U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart in Berlin.

While traveling here last week, Hill said he and North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan "certainly had an agreement on getting the six-party talks going soon."

"I can't tell you at this point when it will be, but I think probably in the next couple of weeks," he told reporters in Beijing Sunday following his meeting with China's chief nuclear negotiator Wu Dawei. Hill's Beijing trip came after his meeting with his Japanese counterpart Kenichiro Sasae in Tokyo Saturday.

Ongoing diplomacy to reopen the nuclear talks was again confirmed by the North Korean negotiator's trip over the weekend to Moscow, where Russia's top nuclear envoy Alexander Losyukov said he hoped for "the soonest holding of the next round of the six-nation negotiations."

Chun Young-woo, Seoul's top negotiator in the nuclear talks, was scheduled to visit Beijing from Monday and may meet with his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Ministry officials said.

"Deputy Minister Chun is to take a 1:40 p.m. flight to Beijing," Lee Youn-soo, a ministry spokesman, told reporters.

He was scheduled to meet with the Chinese nuclear negotiator "either later in the day or early tomorrow," the spokesman said.

The North Korean nuclear dispute erupted in late 2002 following a U.S. claim that North Korean officials admitted to running a clandestine nuclear weapons program based on highly enriched uranium, an accusation soon denied by Pyongyang.

North Korea set off a nuclear device, believed to be plutonium-based, on Oct. 9.

The hope for a new round of talks also comes amid a move by the U.S. to ease its restrictions on the communist North.

The U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted the Banco Delta Asia (BDA) bank in Macau in September 2005, accusing it of aiding the North's illegal financial activities, such as counterfeiting and money laundering.

North Korea had stayed away from the nuclear talks for 13 months before rejoining them late last year, demanding the U.S. first remove the financial restrictions.

Washington has insisted the sanctions have nothing to do with the nuclear talks and are only measures aimed at guarding the international financial market from Pyongyang's illegal activities.

The U.S., however, is now considering unfreezing funds believed to have come from North Korea's legitimate business.

An official in Washington said the U.S. government has begun a review of several North Korean accounts at the BDA following a recent Seoul government intelligence report that said the accounts appear to contain legitimate funds.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it was not clear whether Washington's review was prompted by the report, but it may lead to unfreezing as much as half of North Korea's funds, or US$12 million.

Officials at the South Korean Foreign Ministry said they were unaware of such a report being relayed to the U.S., but said "some other intelligence offices" may have done so.

Financial officials from Washington and Pyongyang were expected to picked up on their December meeting in the near future, according to officials.

The venue for the financial talks has yet to be decided.
Seoul, Jan. 22 (Yonhap News)