China awaits confirmation of North Korea talks

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is still waiting for confirmation from the other countries involved in talks on North Korea's nuclear program that the next round will start next month, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday that the next round of stop-start six-party negotiations would begin on December 8 but Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the date was not certain. "The Chinese side has already suggested December 8 for the next meeting of the heads of delegation for the six-party talks," he told a news conference.

"We are still waiting for feedback from the other five parties and will set the date according to their opinions," Qin added, declining to speculate on how long the next round would last.

The talks involve North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

In a deal worked out in 2005, reclusive North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for aid and a chance to end its international isolation.

Pyongyang, which has tested an atomic device, began to disable some of its nuclear facilities last year but did not hand over a promised list about its nuclear arms program until this summer.

The agreement almost collapsed because the United States was slow in removing North Korea from a terrorism blacklist, saying it first wanted to agree on a procedure to verify Pyongyang's statements about its nuclear program.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)