By Arshad Mohammed
BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State CondoleezzaRice met Chinese leaders on Tuesday for talks in which NorthKorea's nuclear programme is expected to be high on the agenda.
North Korea has promised to abandon all nuclear weapons andprogrammes in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentivesunder an agreement between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russiaand the United States reached in Beijing in 2005.
However, the deal has been stymied by Pyongyang's failureto meet an end-2007 deadline to disclose its nuclearprogrammes.
A senior U.S. official said Rice hoped her Asian trip wouldact as "a real catalyst to get over this bar of a gooddeclaration" and she particularly wanted help from China, NorthKorea's major trading partner and traditional Communist ally.
"We continue to believe that if anyone is capable ofconvincing the North that this kind of transparency is the onlyway forward, it's the Chinese," said the official, who spokeanonymously because of the sensitivity of the diplomacy.
According to U.S. officials and analysts, the stickingpoint has been Pyongyang's reluctance to discuss any nucleartechnology it may have transferred to other nations, notablySyria, as well as its suspected pursuit of uranium enrichment.
The United States has questions about any possible NorthKorean role in a suspected Syrian covert nuclear site that wasbombed by Israel in September. Syria has denied having anuclear programme but the case remains murky.
Rice, who attended South Korean President Lee Myung-bak'sinauguration in Seoul on Monday, arrived in Beijing on Tuesdayand flies to Tokyo on Wednesday.
She has no plans to visit Pyongyang, where the New YorkPhilharmonic orchestra will play a concert featuring the worksof Antonin Dvorak and George Gershwin on Tuesday.
In Beijing, Rice was due to meet Chinese President HuJintao, Premier Wen Jiabao after meeting Foreign Minister YangJiechi.
"Our two sides are working very hard to implement animportant agreement," Yang told Rice in possible reference to aplanned defence hotline between the two countries.
"...I'm delighted to have this opportunity to exchangeviews with you on how to further our cooperative relationshipand how to increase our communications, coordination andcooperation on major international issues."
Rice responded with a reference to "a very large and veryimportant agenda" of bilateral and global issues to bediscussed.
The talks are likely to touch on efforts to get a thirdU.N. Security Council resolution passed imposing sanctions onIran for its nuclear programme, as well as on human rights, anissue in focus ahead of this year's Olympic Games in Beijing,
Rice also plans to discuss how the six nations that reachedthe agreement on ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions mightmonitor it, including tracking whether North Korea proliferatesnuclear technology in the future.
