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SEOUL, Jan 6 (AFP) - South Korean Foreign Minister Han Seung-Soo plans to meet US Secretary of State Colin Powell this month for talks on how to draw North Korea back into dialogue, a report said Sunday.

The South's Yonhap news agency said that Seoul and Washington were interested to know why the North has turned a deaf ear to repeated calls for dialogue.

Yonhap quoted a foreign ministry official as saying: "Regardless of what response we get from North Korea it is our position to do all we can to induce Pyongyang to restart talks both across the border and with the United States."

Other issues that could be brought up in the planned meeting between Han and Powell include a visit by US President George W. Bush to South Korea, it said.

The two Koreas have organized reunions of separated families and other reconciliation events since their landmark summit in June, 2000.

But inter-Korean ties faltered last year over Washington's tough stance toward Pyongyang.

The United States has offered to resume talks, urging the North to reduce conventional forces and halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction. But the North has rejected Washington's calls.

The Korean peninsula is the world's last Cold War frontier, with the North and South yet to sign a peace treaty following their armed conflict in the 1950s.

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