SEOUL - SOUTH Korea's foreign ministry has given President-elect Lee Myung-Bak a report urging the disarming of North Korea by 2010, a news report said on Sunday.

The ministry's report to the transition team for Mr Lee, who takes office next month, said a concrete disarmament schedule should be established in the first half of this year, the Yonhap news agency reported.

The ministry had reported it would push to 'complete the nuclear dismantlement by 2010 with all nuclear materials, including plutonium, and detonators to be taken out' of North Korea, Yonhap said.

It was not clear whether the South Korean plan had been coordinated with other nations at the six-party nuclear disarmament talks on the North.

The six-nation process has been stuck in limbo sincePyongyang missed a key Dec 31 deadline to disable its main nuclear facilities and give a full declaration of its atomic programmes.

A hurdle was the North's suspected uranium enrichment programme, which Washington says exists but Pyongyang flatly denies, negotiators say.

'The disabling would be completed in March, given the time needed for removing nuclear spent fuel rods,' an unnamed diplomatic source told Yonhap.

'The declaration issue should also be settled by then.'

Top US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill, on a regional tour last week, urged Pyongyang to give a 'correct and complete' declaration to keep the six-party talks alive.

He said it would be 'desirable' for the North to come clean on all its weapons programmes before Lee, who has signalled a tougher line on Pyongyang, takes office in Seoul on Feb 25.

The North agreed to a landmark deal in Feb 2007 with South Korea, China, the United Sates, Russia and Japan to abandon all its nuclear weapons programmes in return for economic aids and other political benefits.

The non-economic incentives include full diplomatic relations with the United States and Japan and a formal peace treaty. -- AFP