Amid signs that the meeting, originally pencilled in for Beijing in December, may not take place as hoped in January, Washington refused to budge from its view that a solution to the crisis should be discussed at talks, not before them.

"We are continuing to state pretty categorically, that we're not going to offer incentives for North Korea to return to the negotiating table," said State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli.

"We are prepared to resume talks without preconditions. No other party has set preconditions.

"We urge the North to drop its preconditions and move to another round of talks where all parties can seek to achieve progress on the issues of concern."

In its latest rhetorical blast ahead of the talks, North Korea said earlier that it was ready to resume crisis talks at an early date if Washington agreed ahead of time to reward it for re-freezing its nuclear weapons facilities.

Pyongyang's ruling Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said that without a prior agreement, the talks could be even scrapped altogether.

"The six-way talks may be resumed at an early date or may be delayed or scuttled depending on how preparations are made for their resumption," the newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

"(The) ball is in the US court."

A senior South Korean official meanwhile said that talks that should have taken place in Beijing in December, may now be pushed back to next month.

President Roh Moo-Hyun's National Security Advisor Ra Jong-Yil said that scheduling challenges were posed by the extended holiday season in Russia that lasts well into January and Lunar New Year celebrations in China in late January.

Russia and China are six-way talks participants along with the United States, Japan and the two Koreas.

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