North Korea nuclear disarmament talks delayed

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill (R) walks with a North Korean official upon his arrival at an airport in this picture distributed by China's official news agency Xinhua in Pyongyang, North Korea, December 3, 2007.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Multinational talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program that were expected to take place as early as this week have been delayed, a South Korean official said on Tuesday.

The next session of the talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States would likely outline steps to start taking apart the North's nuclear weapons facilities, and the rewards Pyongyang would receive for compliance.

South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong told reporters there did not appear to be enough time this week to arrange the meeting. He did not offer further details.

Officials had said they expected the talks from Dec 6-8.

The North signed a deal with the five regional powers to disable its Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear complex and give a complete accounting of its nuclear arms program by the end of the year in exchange for aid and an end to the cold shoulder it has received from most of the developed world.

Christopher Hill, the top U.S. envoy to the talks, went to North Korea on Monday and made the highest-level U.S. visit so far to the nuclear complex at the heart of the North's atomic arms program, a U.S. embassy official in Seoul said.

On Tuesday, Hill met the North's Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun, the communist state's official KCNA news agency said in a one-sentence dispatch.

It is rare for the foreign minister of the reclusive North to meet U.S. diplomats due to the tense state of relations between the countries, which do not have formal ties, and because the North's foreign minister hardly ever goes overseas.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Alex Richardson)

((jon.herskovitz@reuters.com; +822 3704-5510;, Reuters Messaging: jon.herskovitz.reuters.com@reuters.net)