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South Korea is cautiously optimistic that a breakthrough in the stalled six-way talks on the North Korean nuclear program can be worked out within days, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Friday.

The upbeat note came amid news reports that top North Korean and U.S. nuclear envoys will likely meet in a Southeast Asian city early next week to resolve the dispute over an agreed-upon declaration of the North's nuclear activity.

Informed sources in Washington said North Korean negotiator Kim Kye-gwan is likely to fly to the region to hold talks with his counterpart Christopher Hill, who is visiting Indonesia to attend a multilateral security conference.

Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore, where North Korea has diplomatic missions, have been cited as among the possible venues.

The Foreign Ministry official refused to confirm the reports but he said North Korea and the U.S. appear to have markedly bridged differences on the declaration issue since the Hill-Kim talks in Geneva last month.

"We are cautiously optimistic that a breakthrough can be made soon," the South Korean Foreign Ministry official said without elaborating. He asked not to be named.

Pyongyang was required to submit a full list of its nuclear program by the end of last year under an aid-for-denuclearization deal. The North claims it already provided the list several months ago, but the U.S. says it was just "research material" without addressing suspicions over an uranium-enrichment program and proliferation to Syria.

The U.S. reportedly has evidence substantiating the allegations after tracing the North's purchase of centrifuges from Pakistan and aluminum tubes from Russia. The U.S. also has a list of North Korean nuclear experts who played a role in transferring related technology to Syria, according to media.

North Korea has reportedly agreed to include indirect explanations of the suspicions in the declaration but details including wording have yet to be fine-tuned.

Hill said Washington is more concerned about the elements of the declaration than its format. During his trip here earlier this week, the envoy said he is waiting for Pyongyang's reply to Washington's new offer "in the next few days."

But the South Korean official emphasized the unpredictability of negotiations with the North.

"When it comes to negotiations with North Korea, although a deal may look imminent, in many cases nothing is produced eventually," he said.

SEOUL, April 4 (Yonhap)