Washington has reiterated its opposition to providing economic compensation to Pyongyang as a way to resolve the 18-month standoff over North Korea's nuclear arms program.

U.S. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said in a press briefing Friday that the United States does not view it as a good practice to pay North Korea to stop doing things it shouldn't have been doing in the first place.

Boucher's remarks come in the wake of a North Korean demand Thursday for economic aid in return for a freeze of its nuclear programs. Meanwhile, concerned parties of the six-way talks aimed at defusing the atomic crisis continued their preparations for holding a working-level meeting in Beijing on May 12th.

At that meeting, nations involved in the multilateral nuclear dialogue - the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan - are expected to work out a detailed agenda ahead of convening a third round of official six-way talks at the end of June.