Speaking to reporters late Sunday after meeting with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Wen said there had been progress in efforts towards a peaceful resolution of the crisis, Xinhua news agency said.

North Korea, which pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, relaunched its nuclear reactors and kicked out international monitors in January, has said its ultimate objective is a nuclear-weapons-free Korean peninsula, Wen was quoted as saying.

For its part the United States has made it clear it has no intention of changing the government in Pyongyang, Wen said.

"The positions of the two parties are getting closer," he said.

A top South Korean diplomat said Sunday that the United States, Japan and South Korea had hammered out a joint draft statement to be adopted at the next round of six-nation talks aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

"The three countries have finished work on the wording of a joint statement to be issued" at fresh talks on the crisis, Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-Hyuck told a press conference in Seoul.

The draft envisaged a security guarantee for Pyongyang in return for its declaration that it would scrap its nuclear program, Lee said.

"It will be conveyed soon to North Korea through China," he said, adding the statement was proposed first by China and South Korea.

Lee said the six-nation meeting, originally expected to take place in Beijing in the third week of December, could be delayed. But Wen expressed optimism that it could still take place this month.

"It's important to continue with the six-party process, to have these talks resumed as soon as possible," Wen said here Sunday. "We hope that it will be possible to hold the six-party talks in the month of December. Of course, it still depends on the consensus and agreement among all the parties concerned."

During Sunday's meeting at UN headquarters, Wen and Annan "had a very constructive and stimulating conversation," the United Nations chief said.

Annan said that discussions had focused on China-UN relations, Iraq, the Korean Peninsula and efforts to contain AIDS/HIV.

"We also agreed to continue our cooperation," he said, noting talks by the two on UN reform and the need to strengthen the organization to "make it effective and more responsive to the challenges of our time."

"I was also very, very pleased to be able to thank him for the very strong support, economic, material, financial and otherwise, that China is providing to the African continent," Annan said.

For his part Wen said China "stands ready for closer cooperation with the United Nations" as it embarks on an arduous reform process.

A high-level panel appointed by Annan met for the first time this weekend to map out a new role for the United Nations in the 21st century.

"We support UN reforms with the hope that through reforms, the United Nations could better bring into play its authority and role," Wen told reporters. "We hope that through reforms, the United Nations would be more representative of the interests of the people throughout the world."

Wen met with Annan shortly after his arrival in the United States on Sunday for a three-day official visit that is to include a meeting with President George W. Bush at the White House Tuesday.

Wen is to seek assurances from the Bush administration that Washington will rein in Taiwan, which China views as a renegade province, the Chinese news agency Xinhua said.

Friday, Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian announced he would hold a referendum critical of China's missile threat to the island next March.

Asked Sunday about the referendum, Wen insisted that China would not allow Taiwan to use democratic aspirations as a cover for separatism.

Mainland China understands "the aspiration of the people in Taiwan for democracy," Xinhua quoted him as saying.

"However, the essence of the problem now is that the separatist forces within the Taiwan authorities attempt to use democracy only as a cover to split Taiwan away from China and this is what we will never tolerate," Wen said.

Wen's visit is part of a four-nation tour that will also take him to Canada, Mexico and Ethiopia.

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