By Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) - Foreign ministers of the six countries intalks on ending North Korea's nuclear arms programme wereexpected to hold their first meeting NEXT (NXT.LO)week at a regionalforum in Singapore, a diplomatic source in Seoul said onFriday.
The unprecedented meeting would come as North Korea hasreleased a long-delayed accounting of its murky nuclear plansand the United States has moved to take the communist countryoff of a State Department terrorism blacklist.
"It is likely that the foreign ministers of the six-partytalks (that include the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia andthe United States) will meet in Singapore," the source toldReuters.
The meeting, tentatively planned for next Wednesday, wouldlikely be an informal gathering that would not result in anagreement, the source said.
The meeting next week of the ASEAN Regional Forum is theonly annual event that brings together the foreign ministers ofthe six countries.
At talks among six-country nuclear envoys held in Beijingearlier this month, the five powers pressed Pyongyang to accepta mechanism to verify the claims it made about itsweapons-grade plutonium stockpile.
North Korea pledged at that meeting to complete steps todisable its Soviet-era nuclear facilities by the end ofOctober, as part of a deal it reached with the other fivestates.
International envoys did not reach final agreement on adetailed guideline of how to verify the North's account of itsnuclear activities made last month. But they mandated a workinggroup to draw up the details.
(Additional reporting by Kim Junghyun, writing by JonHerskovitz)
