(Recasts with U.S. Korea expert to visit North Korea) WASHINGTON, May 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said its top Korea expert will hold talks in Pyongyang on Thursday as part of the U.S. effort to secure a declaration of the secretive, communist nation's nuclear programs. Separately, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte will travel to Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing from Wednesday through Monday to discuss bilateral and regional issues as well as the push to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The State Department also said that a U.S. team is in North Korea discussing the possibility of the United States providing food aid to the impoverished nation but has made no decision. The visit to Pyongyang by Sung Kim, the State Department's top Korea expert, is his second in two weeks and reflects an accelerated U.S. effort to secure the declaration, a key part of an agreement under which North Korea committed to abandoning its nuclear programs. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that Kim was expected to leave Washington on Tuesday for Seoul and then to travel to Pyongyang overland. His talks on Thursday in Pyongyang were expected to last only one day and he is then expected to head back to Washington on Friday, McCormack said. South Korea's Yonhap news agency said Kim, who last visited the communist state's capital in late April, was expected to wrap up coordination on North Korea's nuclear declaration. North Korea's failure to issue the declaration when it was due on Dec. 31 has bogged down a 2005 multilateral deal under which the poor, communist state committed eventually to abandon all nuclear weapons and programs. The so-called six-party agreement was hammered out among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. The declaration has been held up partly because of Pyongyang's reluctance to discuss any transfer of nuclear technology to other countries, notably Syria, as well as to account for its suspected pursuit of uranium enrichment. Uranium enrichment could provide North Korea with a second way to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons in addition to its plutonium-based program, which it used to test an atomic device in October 2006. In a written statement, the State Department said Negroponte would visit Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing "for discussions with his counterparts on a broad range of bilateral, regional and global issues." It said he would consult with South Korea, Japan and China on developments in the region and political and economic issues and strengthen ties. It gave no other details. McCormack said he was certain that Negroponte would discuss the six-party process. That said, the day-to-day diplomacy on those negotiations are carried out by Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill and other officials like Sung Kim. A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Negroponte was expected to leave Washington on Tuesday and to arrive in Seoul on Wednesday. (Reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Eric Walsh)
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