South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-Hyuck will leave Wednesday for talks with James Kelly, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Mitoji Yabunaka, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceania Affairs Bureau.

"Maybe this will be their last meeting before six party talks take place," said foreign ministry spokesman Kim Sun-Heung.

No date for the next round of six party talks has been announced but officials in Seoul said they could take place around December 17.

The ministry dismissed as "unfounded speculation" reports that a late hitch will delay the talks until next year.

YTN cable new channel cited an unnamed senior South Korea official as saying a delay was likely because North Korea had turned down a proposal for a multilateral security guarantee and instead wanted an assurance from Washington alone, that other parties to the talks could later endorse.

"This is unfounded speculation. There is no reason for a delay," said Kim.

North Korea blames the United States for the 14-month-old nuclear crisis and says a hostile Washington is bent on invading the Stalinist state. It wants a non-aggression pact with Washington before it will agree to scrap its nuclear weapons drive.

Recently, however, it said it was prepared to listen to a proposal from US President George W. Bush for a written multilateral security guarantee although Pyongyang has never said it would accept the offer.

Washington is insisting on a verifiable and irreversible end to Pyongyang's nuclear programmes.

The United States says North Korea has already built nuclear bombs from a plutonium producing programme and is also working on a uranium enrichment scheme.

The crisis erupted in October last year after Washington said Pyongyang was pursuing the unranium programme in breach of a 1994 nuclear freeze agreement.

Foreign ministry spokesman Kim said Thursday's talks in Washington would focus on finalizing details ahead of the next round of multilateral talks expected in Beijing.

"This will be their chance to fine-tune their agenda," he said.

Late last month Kelly visited Japan, China and South Korea as delegates to the talks worked on drafting a proposal for a security guarantee for North Korea.

Kim Yong-Il, North Korea's vice-minister of foreign affairs, later held meetings over three days in China with senior officials including Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.

Their talks on the nuclear crisis were "in depth," China's foreign minstry said.

WAR.WIRE