A decision is likely within weeks on whether to take the North Korea nuclear issue to the United Nations, where sanctions could be imposed on the communist state, a US defence official said yesterday. The comment reflects growing frustration over Pyongyang’s failure to return to six-party negotiations aimed at persuading the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The last round of talks was held in June 2004.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is due to meet President Bush in Washington on June 10 for talks that could be crucial to the way forward on North Korea. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld touched only lightly on the subject in separate meetings in Singapore on Saturday with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, the senior Pentagon official said.

But Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless, in Singapore with Rumsfeld, was heading to Seoul later in the day for talks on the nuclear issue and on US troop restructuring ahead of Roh’s US visit. Although sanctions could be imposed, U.S. officials have said efforts would be likely to start with some lesser expression of international concern, such as a Council president statement. But China and Russia, two of the five veto-wielding Security Council members, have opposed such a move.