"The United States and North Korea have just started talks," Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi told a press conference. "It's not a situation that would allow the next round to start on the sixth" of December.

Christopher Hill, the chief US nuclear negotiator, has said that host China was preparing six-nation talks for the latter part of this week. Media reports have said the meeting was due from December 6-8.

Hill on Monday headed to Pyongyang for a rare visit. He was due to meet his counterpart Kim Kye-Gwan to discuss Pyongyang's required declaration of all its atomic programmes, plutonium stockpiles plus any weaponry.

But Yachi said the conditions were not right to hold the talks until North Korea finishes its list of nuclear programmes, which it has agreed to declare by year-end.

"We would not be in a situation to start the negotiations immediately even if we were to hold the meeting" on Thursday, Yachi said.

Japan's Jiji Press quoted an anonymous Japanese official doubting that the talks would be held quickly.

"We cannot expect North Korea to make the declaration so easily," Jiji quoted the official as saying.

The North shocked the world in October 2006 by staging a nuclear test. But some four months later, it reached a six-nation accord to disable its plutonium-producing plants and make a complete nuclear declaration in return for major energy aid.

Japan has been the most critical member of the six-way talks. It has refused to provide aid due to a row over Pyongyang's past kidnappings of Japanese civilians to train its spies.

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