The United States said it was planning more one-on-one talks with North Korea in a push to make progress in multinational negotiations aimed at dismantling the communist state's nuclear programme.
Chief US envoy Christopher Hill held what he called "lengthy and substantive" negotiations with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan today and said he planned for more of the same as talks entered their third day tomorrow.
Mr Hill also stressed the need for North Korea, also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), to take steps towards giving up its nuclear arsenal.
"I think the DPRK needs to work on this because I do believe that at the end of this six-party process, however it turns out, it will help determine that country's future in a way that I think is fairly profound," Mr Hill told reporters tonight.
The talks, which group the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China, are the first in more than a year, and are taking place in the shadow of North Korea's first nuclear test on October 9th.
The other five parties say they are hoping to make progress implementing a September 2005 agreement in which North Korea agreed in principle to give up its nuclear weapons in return for aid and security guarantees.
But North Korea opened the talks saying it would not compromise until UN sanctions and US financial curbs against it were lifted and it was provided with a new nuclear reactor.