A senior US envoy arrived in North Korea today, China's Xinhua News Agency reported.
The surprise trip by nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill followed the resolution this week of a banking dispute that had held up progress toward disarmament for more than a year, and the announcement that UN nuclear monitors would visit next week.
The trip is Mr Hill's first to North Korea, as well as the first by a US nuclear envoy since the latest crisis with the North over its nuclear development began in late 2002.
The US envoy is in Pyongyang for consultations with his North Korean nuclear counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, "to move the process forward," the State Department said.
The department said he will reinforce the importance of the need to move swiftly to fulfil all the commitments that were made as part of a February 13th disarmament agreement.
"It is critical for the six parties to make up for lost time to restore momentum to achieving our agreed common goal, the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula," the statement said.
The State Department said Mr Hill would then brief other nuclear envoys involved in the talks in Tokyo on his way back to Washington.
Mr Hill had told reporters that the United States hopes the next round of nuclear negotiations will take up matters other than inspections of the North's Yongbyon reactor and the banking dispute that had held up the talks.
About $25 million in North Korean funds had been frozen at Macau's Banco Delta Asia after the institution was blacklisted by the United States over allegations of money-laundering and other financial crimes. North Korea had refused to dismantle its nuclear facilities until the money was freed. The United States only recently approved the release to help end the standoff.
Yesterday, Mr Hill said the US expected diplomats to start planning the shutdown of North Korea's nuclear facilities within the next two weeks, with a full meeting of the top nuclear envoys resuming soon after July 4th.
UN nuclear inspectors were expected to travel to North Korea on Tuesday to prepare for the first IAEA inspection since the agency's experts were expelled from the country in December 2002.
Under the deal reached in February with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States, North Korea pledged to shut down its Yongbyon reactor, its main processing facility, in exchange for energy and economic aid.
AP