The chief US negotiator on North Korea said Thursday Pyongyang would apparently not rejoin stalled talks on its nuclear programme on the sidelines of an Asian security forum.
"We tried to invite the DPRK to come to a six-party meeting and they showed no interest and I think we therefore are unfortunately not going to be able to have any kind of six-party meeting here," Christopher Hill told reporters.
Hill's comments came shortly after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Kuala Lumpur for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum amid speculation that the talks could go ahead.
China, South Korea and Japan have been leading hectic diplomatic efforts to get North Korea to attend an impromptu session of the six-nation talks, which Pyongyang walked out of in November.
Attention was now focused on how to discuss peace moves on the Korean peninsula without the North's participation, Hill said.
"(We have) five parties already, it's just the sixth that's lost on the way. So we are hoping to have a broader discussion on security in Northeast Asia," he said.
"But the DPRK will apparently not want to participate," he added, using the acronym of the North's official name the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Rice said en route to Kuala Lumpur from a Middle East peace conference in Rome that she did not anticipate any resumption here of the talks, which group the two Koreas, China, South Korea, Japan, the United States and Russia.
