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The foreign ministers of South Korea and China shared the view Thursday that there are signs of progress in the run-up to the next round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions, saying their countries would cooperate in the upcoming negotiations.

Song Min-soon met with his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing on the first day of his three-day visit to China.

The two foreign ministers "gave an evaluation that the recent process for the six-party talks has made progress and promised to closely cooperate in the next round of the talks," a diplomatic source said on condition of anonymity. Their closed-door talks and following dinner were held at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing.

Song and Li also reaffirmed their stance that the new round should take place before Feb. 18, Lunar New Year's Day, the source said.

Song arrived in Beijing earlier in the day to fine-tune the strategy for the multi-nation negotiations to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons program.

Before their talks, Song said "The process for the six-party talks is showing much progress." Li also told reporters that "The situation has been improving" since envoys of North Korea and the United States met in Berlin.

The top nuclear negotiators from Washington and Pyongyang, Christopher Hill and Kim Kye-gwan, met last week in the German capital, where the two, according to Hill, "agreed on a number of issues." Song also called on China to cooperate for the protection of South Korean citizens abducted by North Korea or prisoners of war (POWs) from the Korean War in case they defect to China, the source said. His call came after the Chinese government deported nine relatives of South Korean POWs, who had fled to China, to North Korea.

Earlier in the day, Song also met with China's State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan.

Tang told the foreign minister that China hopes the six-way talks would be resumed before the Feb. 18 Lunar New Year holiday.

The Chinese official added that the negotiations could be continued during the holiday if they are not completed by then.

It has been widely expected that the six-party talks, involving the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia, will be resumed by mid-February. But Tang's comments marked the first time for China, the host of the talks, to reveal its stand on the matter publicly.

The foreign minister's visit came amid efforts to get Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear weapons program. Beijing is expected to announce the date for a new round of the nuclear disarmament negotiations soon.

North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs in 2005 during a round of the six-party talks, but none of the agreed-upon measures in the Sept. 19 agreement have yet been applied.

The communist nation claimed the 2005 accord immediately entitled it to various economic benefits and security guarantees, while the other parties, notably the U.S., insisted the promised benefits would come only after the North began the dismantling process.

The talks, stalled for 13 months amid a financial dispute between the U.S. and the North, resumed late last month and yielded little progress.

Song's visit to Beijing largely represents the urgency Seoul feels for tangible results in the next round of nuclear disarmament talks.

"The government will continue its efforts to realize the (2005) agreement on the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue through the six-party talks and to secure a permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula," Song said Wednesday.

"To achieve this goal, we will first try to make actual progress that can be felt" in the new round of the six-party talks, he added.

Song also discussed ways to direct North Korea toward dismantlement in telephone conversations with his U.S. counterpart Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday, and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso on Thursday.

"Minister Song and Secretary Rice agreed to work closely together in the next round of the six-party talks, expected to start early next month, to secure an agreement on the early steps of implementing the Sept. 19 accord," the Foreign Ministry said in a press release.

The nuclear dispute erupted in October 2002 when Washington accused Pyongyang of running a clandestine nuclear weapons program based on highly-enriched uranium.

North Korea has yet to admit to having a uranium-based program.

It detonated a nuclear device on Oct. 9.

Beijing, Jan. 25 (Yonhap News)