US, N Korean officials meet in New York

"There was a New York channel meeting in New York. Our representatives met with North Korean representatives," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was attending a conference.

McCormack said Rice had not yet been briefed on the meeting and so could offer no reaction.

The United States was represented by Joseph DeTrani, the US special envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and by Jim Foster, director of the State Department's Office of Korean Affairs, said another US official in Washington, who asked not to be named.

Representing North Korea were UN Ambassador Pak Gil Yon and a deputy, Han Song Ryol, a State Department official said. Both men declined comment as they returned to their UN mission after the meeting.

No six-party talks have been held since June 2004. The six governments participating in those negotiations are China, Japan, South Korea and Russia in addition to North Korea and the United States.

North Korea requested Monday's face-to-face meeting last week, the official said.

The United States and North Korea have in the past used what they call the "New York channel" to get in touch with one another as they do not have formal diplomatic relations.

Rice said the channel was for working-level contacts.

"We do not believe in bilateral negotiations with the North Koreans. We meet with the North Koreans in the context of the six-party talks," Rice said in an interview with CNN Espanol.

"We believe that this is the best way to make certain that North Korea gets a consistent and coherent message from all of the members of the neighbourhood that their nuclear weapons program simply has to go," she said.