A planned working group meeting for the higher-level nuclear talks set for this month has fallen through.

A government official said Tuesday that all things considered, it would be difficult to open the working group meeting by the end of the month as planned.

He said, however, that the third round of higher-level talks, aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear standoff, will take place near the end of June as Pyongyang had earlier promised.

At their second six-party nuclear talks held in Beijing in February, South and North Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan agreed to hold a third round of negotiations before July, with a lower-level working group meeting to precede the main discussions.

South Korea and other member nations of the six-way talks had exerted diplomatic efforts to hold the first round of working group talks by the end of the month. The North balked, however, insisting that it would dismantle its nuclear arms program only if the U.S. first made concessions.