A senior South Korean foreign ministry official left Wednesday for New York for talks with his US counterparts on North Korea`s nuclear programme, officials said.

The foreign ministry said Hwang Joon-Kook, head of the North Korean nuclear issue bureau, would meet Sung Kim, director of the US State Department`s Office of Korean Affairs, and other officials during his four-day trip to New York.

`The visit was made at the request of the US government,` a ministry official told AFP.

The ministry declined to confirm a report by the South`s Yonhap news agency that Hwang may meet Ri Gun, head of the American affairs bureau of the North`s foreign ministry, to discuss ways to verify Pyongyang`s recent nuclear claims.

Ri, who is in New York to attend an academic seminar, plans to meet US officials, Yonhap said.

`The US asked for consultations with us before and after the planned talks with North Korea,` an unidentified official here was quoted as saying.

Washington last month removed North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism saying Pyongyang had agreed to steps to verify its nuclear disarmament and pledged to resume disabling its atomic plants.

But nations involved in six-party talks have yet to endorse a protocol for the hardline communist country to fully verify its nuclear record.