Joseph DeTrani, a ex-senior CIA officer, has joined the office of John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence as senior adviser.

"I think he's actually gone back to work in the intelligence community for Ambassador Negroponte. For him, this is, kind of, a return home," US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

He said DeTrani, who took up the special envoy post in the State Department in January 2004, "made an enormous contribution to our policies concerning North Korea."

McCormack said the department would work closely with DeTrani.

The six-party talks aimed at resolving the Korean nuclear issue are in a limbo, with Pyongyang protesting financial sanctions imposed by Washington over alleged counterfeiting activities by North Korea.

Pyongyang said the financial sanctions breached the spirit of a September pact secured at the Beijing-hosted talks, in which North Korea agreed in principle to disband its nuclear weapons program in return for economic and diplomatic benefits.

The new stumbling block to the negotiations, some analysts say, underscored possible differences in US policy over North Korea and could compound the delay in resolving the three-year nuclear dispute.

The nuclear standoff ignited in 2002 when the United States accused North Korea of running a secret uranium-enrichment program.

The North responded by throwing out UN International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors and abandoning the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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