South Korea hopes the upcoming round of six-party nuclear talks produce a more binding agreement than the documents adopted by the previous sessions, said South Korean foreign minister Wednesday.

"We will try to reach a stronger form of agreement than a chairman's statement," Ban Ki-moon said to reporters in his weekly press briefing.

Ban's remarks came one day after the announcement that the fourth round of the six-party talks aimed to resolve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula will be resumed on July 26 in Beijing.

The South Korean foreign minister also said other countries have agreed to Seoul's proposal of having longer negotiations and introducing more effective dialogue settings in the fourth round of the talks.

The previous three rounds of six-party talks, attended by China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the United States, Russia, South Korea and Japan, lasted three or four days every time.

The second and third round talks ended respectively with a chairman's summary and a chairman's statement.

The nuclear talks had been suspended since last September, when the scheduled fourth round of the meeting failed to be convened as the DPRK refused to come to the talks, citing the US hostile policy toward the DPRK.

Source: Xinhua