"We all hope to get the talks started again, maybe sometime in December or the first week of January," the mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun quoted Armitage as saying in the interview in Washington on Tuesday.

China said Tuesday North Korea was waiting for a change in US policy towards Pyongyang before agreeing to a date for another round of six-party talks involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

The North has accused the United States of adopting a "hostile" policy towards the reclusive country.

"I believe they're looking to see if a new Bush administration may have some softer people in it, to see if they can get a better deal. It's a mistake," Armitage was quoted as saying.

"I don't think the North Koreans have yet to come to a decision on what to do," he added.

Three rounds of multilateral talks to end North Korea's nuclear ambitions have taken place since the standoff erupted in October 2002.

North Korea boycotted a fourth round of talks scheduled for Beijing in September in order to wait out the November US presidential elections, according to many analysts.

Washington has called for a complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of the North's nuclear weapons program.

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