SEOUL, S KOREA - REGIONAL powers are likely to resume talks early next month with North Korea on ending the secretive state's development of nuclear weapons, a senior South Korean official said on Friday.

North Korea earlier this week handed over more than 18,000 pages of records that detailed its production of weapons-grade plutonium over the years as part of an agreement reached in six-country talks on giving up its atomic weapons ambitions.

'I anticipate the talks to take place in June, and we have the first half rather than the second in mind,' South Korean envoy to those talks, Kim Sook, told reporters.

Mr Kim will travel to Washington on Sunday for talks with US and Japanese officials, following discussions this week in China.

South and North Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China agreed last year that Pyongyang would submit a 'complete and correct' declaration of its nuclear activities and Washington would take steps to delist it as a terrorism sponsoring nation.

A South Korean official familiar with the six-way process said that step by Washington, and a move to suspend a trade ban against the North under the US Trading With the Enemy Act, is expected before the end of May.

'The US position as I understand it is that once they can make a preliminary assessment that (the North) has fulfilled its commitment, then it will be taking those actions,' he said. -- REUTERS