Top Chinese and US diplomats discussed the North Korean nuclear crisis during talks in Beijing Friday, a US official said, but he gave no clues on the outcome of the meetings.

US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg met Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi during a one-day stop in the Chinese capital following visits to Japan and Seoul.

"We, the United States, had wide-ranging talks on Sino-US relations and the security situation in Northeast Asia," Michael Hammer, spokesman for the US National Security Council, told reporters in Beijing.

He spoke on behalf of Steinberg, who was departing for the United States.

Hammer said the two sides had a "productive day of consultations," and "good meetings," but gave no further details.

The delegation led by Steinberg came to the region to explore possible responses to North Korea's recent sabre-rattling.

The United States, Japan, China, Russia and South Korea have for years been engaged in now-stalled negotiations with North Korea aimed at scrapping Pyongyang's weapons-grade nuclear programmes.

However, North Korea launched a long-range missile in April, earning condemnation from the United Nations.

Pyongyang then retaliated for the UN rebuke by announcing May 25 that it had staged a second nuclear weapons test, following one in 2006.

It also has declared the armistice ending the 1950-53 Korean War to be void.

Diplomats at the UN said leading powers were working to reach agreement on possible new sanctions against the Stalinist state.

Among the five veto-wielding Security Council members, Russia and China have shown more resistance to imposing sanctions than the United States, France and Britain.

earlier related report

Progress but still no deal on UN NKorea sanctions: diplomats

Ambassadors of seven UN powers made progress in closed-door talks here Thursday but were still chasing an agreement on new sanctions to punish North Korea for its recent nuclear test, diplomats said.

"We are making the best possible efforts to narrow the area of disagreement," Japan's UN Ambassador Yukio Takasu told reporters after meeting for three hours with his counterparts from Britain, China, France, South Korea, Russia and the United States.

"We are making progress. We continue to make efforts to have an agreement as early as possible" on a "a very strong resolution" by the UN Security Council in response to this unacceptable activity," he said referring to North Korea's May 25 underground nuclear test in violation of UN resolutions.

"We are close," his Russian counterpart Vitaly Churkin concurred as he emerged from the meeting held at the US mission to the UN in New York.

The diplomats said the bargaining would continue in the coming days.

"What we are trying to do is negotiate very seriously the whole aspect of additional measures (sanctions) that the Security Council feels is necessary to be taken," Takasu said.

In a related development, Chinese President Hu Jintao held telephone talks with his US counterpart Barack Obama about the North Korean nuclear program, Chinese state media said Thursday.

No details of the discussion were given, but the United States is pushing for tough UN sanctions on North Korea after Pyongyang tested an atom bomb on May 25, its second such test since 2006.

Last week, the seven UN powers unveiled a tentative draft resolution that would condemn "in the strongest terms" North Korea's nuclear test.

They reached broad consensus on widening the sanctions against Pyongyang, but their text left out details of a key paragraph on possible, additional sanctions that would be slapped on the Stalinist state.

A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that under consideration was extending the list of entities targeted for travel bans or financial sanctions.

In addition, a broader arms embargo, tougher inspections of cargo, a freeze on North Korean assets abroad and denial of access to the international banking and financial services were also being mulled, the diplomat said.

US and South Korean defense officials say there are signs that North Korea is preparing to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile, in what would be its second such launch in as many months.

But Washington has warned North Korea not to fire a long-range missile, saying it would worsen tensions after the communist state's nuclear test.

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