Hill to meet N.Koreans in Singapore this week

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill will meet North Korean officials in Singapore ahead of December 8 multilateral talks in Beijing on persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs, a U.S. official said on Monday.

Hill plans to meet Japanese and South Korean officials in Tokyo before going to Singapore. He then travels to Beijing for talks expected to focus on getting a written agreement on how to verify what North Korea has disclosed about its nuclear programs.

North Korea agreed last month to resume disabling its Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear plant, which makes plutonium, and to allow in inspectors to verify claims it made about its atomic arms program after the United States removed it from a terrorism blacklist and rolled back some trade sanctions.

The United States estimates North Korea, which conducted a nuclear test in 2006, has produced about 110 lbs (50 kg) of plutonium, enough for about six to eight nuclear bombs.

North Korea on November 12 indicated that it would not allow international nuclear inspectors to remove nuclear samples from Yongbyon, a move which could hamper disarmament efforts. Its stance contradicts the U.S. view that North Korea is obligated by "understandings" reached in October to allow such sampling.

Resolving the disagreement about sampling is among the central issues that need to be addressed as part of the December 8 Beijing "six-party" talks among China, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Under a 2005 six-party agreement, North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives from the other nations.

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by David Storey)