South Korean top negotiator Chun Yung-woo said on Thursday the first day meeting of the fresh six-party talks will review reports of the working groups, aiming to "lay foundation and make preparation" for following discussions.

"The most important task of the upcoming talks is to examine what we had discussed," Chun Yung-woo told reporters before leaving for the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.

He considered the upcoming meeting an "ultimate examination and verification."

Chun said he hopes to hold bilateral consultations with the US and North Korean delegations before the start of the six-party talks on Thursday afternoon.

The second phase of the sixth round of the six-party talks is scheduled to run from Thursday to Sunday.

The six-party talks, initiated in 2003, involved China, North and South Korea, the US, Russia and Japan.

In a chief negotiators' meeting in July, envoys of the six parties agreed to meet in Beijing in September to hear working group reports and work out a road map for the implementation of the general consensus reached in July.

(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2007)