The working group meeting of China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States starts Wednesday in Beijing.

Pyongyang and Washington have both said they will not budge from their tough positions that had led to a 19-month impasse on how North Korea would meet its security needs in exchange for giving up its unproven and untested nuclear weapons program.

The United States will be represented at the Beijing meeting by an interagency delegation headed by Joseph DeTrani, the special envoy for North Korea.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he had meetings, within the context of the six-party talks, with individual delegations, including the North Korea delegation," said Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman.

"But I don't know of anything set or scheduled at this point," he said when asked whether the United States and North Korea would hold bilateral talks within the ambit of the six-party forum.

Boucher said DeTrani would consult with South Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Russian counterparts on Tuesday before the first session of the working group.

"Our objective remains the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear programs," he said.

"And we will pursue that objective at this working group meeting and at the next six-party plenary meeting, which is expected to take place before the end of June. That's where we are," he added.

The row over North Korea's nuclear program has been deadlocked since October 2002, when Washington said the Stalinist state had broken a 1994 nuclear freeze by launching a secret weapons drive.

Pyongyang insists it will freeze nuclear facilities only if Washington provides economic aid and a non-aggression pledge.

Boucher said that at the upcoming meeting, Washington would "make absolutely clear that complete, verifiable and irreversible are key terms and that those are the parameters of what we expect to achieve.

"It gives us a chance to state again that we don't offer any rewards or inducements for North Korea to come into compliance with its obligations."

Two rounds of six-party talks have failed to narrow differences over the US demand and Pyongyang's denial that it was running an enriched-uranium program.

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