Seoul - South Korean President Lee Myung Bak asked China Wednesday to continue playing an active role in finding a solution for the North Korean nuclear dispute, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said.

Meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Seoul, Lee also expressed hope that Beijing would help improve relations between the two Koreas, the agency said.

China's President Hu Jintao plans to visit Seoul at the end of August.

Beijing hosts the six-party talks which aim at persuading Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons' programme.

In talks with China the United States, South Korea, Russia and Japan, North Korea agreed in July to completely disable its nuclear facilities until October and allow international inspections to verify its nuclear disarmament.

But talks over concrete inspection measures were postponed. The US then reacted by keeping the communist state on its blacklist of terrorism-supporting countries.

The Bush administered informed the US Congress in June that it planned to remove North Korea from the list as an inducement.

At their Seoul meeting, Yang and his South Korean counterpart Yu Myung Hwan discussed the upcoming meeting of their leaders and the latest development in the North Korean nuclear dispute. (dpa)