South Korea is among five countries attempting to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs in the framework of six-way talks.

Key players including Japan, China and the United States have expressed concern about the potential impact of South Korea's admission on plans for a new round of the talks late this month to end the standoff.

So far, North Korea has said nothing about Seoul's admission that government scientists enriched a miniscule quantity of uranium four years ago.

"It all depends on how North Korea wants to play it," said Yu Suk-Ryul, North Korea analyst at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security here.

"For various reasons, they are not really interested in the talks right now. So this will probably give them an excuse to postpone them while having a good bash at South Korea at the same time," he said.

South Korea's own admission comes as North Korea ironically continues to deny allegations of uranium enrichment that triggered the current nuclear standoff 23 months ago.

Since then the Stalinist state, already suspected of possessing about two nuclear weapons, has publicly claimed to have reprocessed enough plutonium for half a dozen more atomic bombs.

Kim Tae-Woo, a senior research fellow at Seoul's Institute for Defense Analyses, advised Pyongyang against assuming the moral high ground and condemning South Korea.

He said South Korea was likely to get "pretty mad" with North Korea and any other critics, because the country had scrupulously respected its nuclear non-proliferation commitments.

"They should keep very quiet about it," he said. "Given their track record of nuclear violations, they have no room to talk."

Analysts said North Korea has yet to admit to US charges it has been enriching uranium and the latest developments in South Korea are unlikely to change that.

"Everybody knows that North Korea has been enriching uranium. I expect they will keep silent about it as in the past," said Kim.

Revelations that South Korean scientists had engaged in clandestine uranium enrichment emerged as a team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last Saturday completed a week-long inspection of Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, where the tests were carried out in early

They will report to IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei about their findings at the state-financed research institute in Daejeon, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Seoul.

ElBaradei will inform the board of governors of the IAEA's initial findings at a meeting from October 13 expected to last for three days.

South Korea has vigorously denied harboring any nuclear weapons ambitions and insists the case revolved around experimentation by scientists without the government knowing.

The case "should not have any implication, should not have any effect on ongoing efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear question," said Oh Joon, a senior Foreign Ministry official dealing with the IAEA.

The research institute's president Chang In-Soon dismissed as "totally groundless" reports the enriched uranium was close to weapons grade and described the quantity enriched, 0.2 grams, as miniscule.

"Some news media suggested this experiment might be a step to build nuclear weapons, but any atomic energy experts would laugh at such claims," Chang said.

He said the test had been conducted "out of curiosity" by a few scientists who were using laser isotope separation equipment to extract gadolinium, a cooling material used at nuclear power plants.

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