U.S.'s Hill to visit Beijing and Moscow next week

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. negotiator with North Korea visits China and Russia next week to brief their officials on multilateral efforts to get North Korea to give up its atomic programs, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill will visit Beijing from Tuesday through Thursday and Moscow from Thursday through Saturday, State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.

Hill had no talks scheduled with North Korean officials but "the North Koreans know he is travelling and if they see an interest or a desire to do so, I am sure they'll arrange something," Casey said.

A diplomatic source said on Thursday Hill was expected to meet senior North Korean diplomat Kim Kye-gwan, Pyongyang's lead nuclear negotiator, in Beijing next week in what may be a sign that North Korea is closer to making a declaration of its atomic programs.

Pyongyang undertook to produce the declaration on its nuclear program as part of a broader multilateral deal under which North Korea, which detonated an atomic device in October 2006, agreed to abandon all its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives.

The six-party agreement was struck by the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

After his visits to Beijing and Moscow, Hill will deliver a speech in Stockholm before returning to the United States on June 2.

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; editing by Frances Kerry)