The Washington Post says the Bush administration has lowered expectations for next week's six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear standoff.

But the reports said that officials are eager to stick to the diplomatic track, no matter how slow, during the election year.

A senior State Department official said the six-way talks need to be seen as a step in a process and that their success or failure will be judged at a later point in the process when they have results.

He added that his expectations are "neither high nor low" but that "if the talks are less than completely successful, they'll continue to try to work along that line."

The Bush administration has reiterated a tough line in advance of the talks, noting that Pyongyang must agree to an irreversible and verifiable dismantling of its nuclear programs and weapons.

While North Korea has offered to freeze a plutonium facility, U.S. officials have also said that North Korea must fully disclose and dismantle a separate program, allegedly identified by U.S. intelligence, to produce highly enriched uranium.