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The US will lead talks on North Korea's nuclear program with at least nine countries attending a regional forum in Malaysia, including Japan and China.

North Korea won't participate after a government official said yesterday in Kuala Lumpur the country won't return to six-nation negotiations on the program unless the US lifts financial sanctions.

“North Korea should get out of the dirty nuclear business,” Christopher Hill, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur today at the forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The US won't lift the financial sanctions on North Korea, he said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Malaysia to discuss security issues with the 10-member Asean, is seeking to rally China, Russia, Japan and South Korea to end the missile standoff on the Korean peninsula. North Korea July 5 fired seven missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2, which landed in the Sea of Japan.

South Korea, Russia, Australia, Canada, Indonesia, New Zealand and Malaysia are among the nations that will take part in the meeting. It is scheduled for 2:45 p.m. Malaysian time on the sidelines of the Asean forum, said a South Korean Foreign Ministry official who declined to be named. Hill said the meeting will last one hour.

Talks on North Korea's missile issue ``would be helpful to the maintenance of peace and stability of the peninsula,” China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said yesterday. “It would be good for the realization of a common goal that is a peninsula free from nuclear arm.”

Li plans to meet his North Korean counterpart Paek Nam Sun later today to discuss “bilateral, as well as multilateral issues,” said Wang Jing Sing, chief of the political department at the Chinese Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Li said he hopes North Korea will agree to return to the six-nation talks. Li is also scheduled to meet Rice today.

The last round of six-nation talks ended in November without agreement after the parties signed a September 2005 declaration calling for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. The forum consists of the US, North Korea, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

China and South Korea have been urging North Korea to return to the negotiating table on the sidelines of the Asean forum.

Asean earlier this week invited the six nations to hold a meeting today during the forum.

The United Nations Security Council on July 15 voted to adopt a resolution demanding that North Korea suspend its missile program and barring the nation from acquiring or selling missile technology.

Indonesia's Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda will meet Rice at 2:15 p.m. Kuala Lumpur time today, followed by his North Korean counterpart and Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

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