A senior US official said in Washington Tuesday that the agreement on the next round of six-party talks over the Korean nuclear issue is still effective.

"All the parties to the talks agreed at the last plenary to hold the next plenary at the end of September. So that's what was agreed to, and as far as we understand, that agreement remains in effect," Adam Ereli, deputy State Department spokesman, told a news briefing.

He said that the scheduled six-party talks is "a multilateral diplomatic approach to a common problem, noting that "it's not a question of the United States versus North Korea."

Ereli made the remarks when the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) threatened recently that it has no hope for the next six-way talks.

A DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday that the meeting of the working group for six-party talks is "impossible" due to the American hostile policy toward Pyongyang.

China has hosted three rounds of the six-party talks to try to resolve the nuclear confrontation between the DPRK and the United States.

It was agreed at the last round of the six-party talks, which also involves the Republic of Korea, Japan and Russia, to convene the next round before the end of September and a working group meeting before that.

"That is still the timeline we are working towards," Ereli said at a news briefing on August 18.

(Xinhua News Agency August 25, 2004)