"The relevant parties have agreed to hold the next round of six-party talks at the earliest convenient time," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.

"At present China is keeping communication and coordination with other parties about the specific date for the next round of meetings."

However, Jiang gave no specific indication on when the talks would be held.

North Korea recently resumed its participation in the denuclearisation process, after the United States met its commitment under a six-nation pact made last year and removed the Stalinist country from a list of terrorism sponsors.

The deal -- between China, Japan, the United States, Russia, and the two Koreas -- had been stalled over disagreements on how to verify a Pyongyang declaration of all its nuclear activities handed over as part of the agreement.

The United States said that before agreeing to remove North Korea from its terrorist blacklist, it got everything it wanted on outside inspections to verify the North's nuclear activities.

However, critics say the secretive communist state will still be able to hide some of its programmes.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.