U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has urged patience with six-party talks aimed at defusing an international standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

He told a news conference after a Group of Eight foreign ministers meeting in Washington Friday that the six-party negotiation process is working and the U.S. and other parties should keep applying pressure on the North.

Powell acknowledged no breakthrough was achieved but said the negotiators had three days of "good open discussions."

The Associated Press said Powell's call for patience seemed at odds with reports that the Bush administration is working on a new intelligence estimate that would formally find the North's program is more advanced and threatening than previously thought.

Two weeks ago, U.S. officials said Pyongyang has manufactured as many as eight nuclear weapons as part of a plutonium program and that a covert highly enriched uranium program could be operational by 2007.

This is up from the one or two weapons that is the formal U.S. estimate at this time.