Beijing, June 5 -- A senior U.S. defense official says the US will make a decision within weeks whether or not to take the North Korea nuclear issue to the United Nations.

    The official told reporters that this decision came from growing frustrations over Pyongyang's failure to return to six-party negotiations aimed at persuading the country to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

    The senior Pentagon official said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld only briefly mentioned the subject in separate meetings in Singapore on Saturday with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts.

    Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless, now in Singapore with Rumsfeld, was heading to Seoul later for further talks on the nuclear issue.

    The Bush administration has long held out the possibility of asking the U.N. Security Council to take action as a means of holding Pyongyang accountable for breaking its international commitment not to pursue nuclear weapons.

    But China and Russia, two of the five veto-wielding Security Council members, have opposed such a move. Both are part of the six-party process, which also includes the United States, Japan, and the two Koreas.

    The senior defense official said he did not believe the U.S. administration had formally approached other states about taking North Korea to the Security Council.

    (Source: CRIENGLISH.com)