The United States, facing opposition to proposed UN sanctions against North Korea for this week's missile tests, said today it backed China's proposal for informal talks to re-engage the reclusive state.
China - the closest North Korea has for an ally - and Russia oppose a draft UN Security Council resolution by Japan to bar missile-related financial and technology transactions with North Korea because of the missile launches.
Instead the focus is shifting towards ways to re-start six-nation talks, stalled since late last year, aimed at persuading North Korea to end its nuclear weapons programme.
"The Chinese have talked about putting together a six-party informal. We both support that," the top US envoy for North Korea, Christopher Hill, told reporters in Seoul after a meeting with a South Korean official.
Mr Hill was in China yesterday and flies to Japan tomorrow. The six-party talks - joining the two Koreas with Russia, China, Japan and the United States - came to a stop last November after Washington cracked down on firms it suspected of helping Pyongyang's illicit activities such as counterfeiting.
But Mr Hill said Washington was not about to make concessions to bring North Korea back to the table. "This is not a time for so-called gestures of that kind," he replied when asked about unfreezing some North Korean assets in a Macau bank to help encourage North Korea back to the talks.