SEOUL. Apr 2: South Korean President Kim Young sam said Saturday that Seoul will enlist China and Russia, the two countries with closest ties to North Korea, in coaxing Pyongyang into allowing nuclear inspections, reports AP

Kim also told ruling party leaders that 'the ball is nMv in North Koreas court" with re gard to the UN Security Council statement calling on Pyongyang to allow International inspections, which passed unanimously on Friday.

"With the Koreas, US and Japan at the center, negotiations with China and Russia will be effective." presidential officials quoted Kim as saying.

Kim returned Wednesday from a summit conference in Beijing with Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Foreign Minister Han Sung-Joo is to leave for Moscow for talks with Russian

officials after returning from Washington and Tbkyo.

China is Communist North Korea's last remaining ally and the former Soviet Union had been Pyongyang® closest ally

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Panov said last week that Moscow would still honour a decades-old defence treaty between North Korea and the former Soviet Union.

Kim said also that during their talks in Beijing. Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng said that China would like to take a constructive part in easing nuclear tensions.

North Korea denies making atomic weapons, but its yearlong refusal to allow inspections has heightened suspicions. It s March refusal to allow International Atomic Energy Agency officials to Inspect a key site led to the

Security Council statement.

The statement, which gives the hard-line Stalinist nation about a month was a compromise between a US-backed resolution that contained veiled threatens and a Chinese call for a softer approach.

Friday. Kim said that China would feel obligated to work for full inspections since the statement was passed with Beijing's support.

Also Saturday. Seoul's Ministry of Defence said it would extend indefinitely low-alert status for its 655.000 troops because of the nuclear tensions on the peninsula.

The South Korean forces entered its low alert status In November when tensions began mounting, ministry officials said. The status was scheduled to last until the end of March, they said.