In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has stressed that the U.S. remains committed to convening six-way nuclear talks this month as previously scheduled.

In a news briefing Wednesday, Boucher said the U.S. is hopeful that Pyongyang will agree to opening the multilateral discussions at the end of this month as six-party nations had agreed in the previous round of talks in Beijing in June.

Citing a lack of information, Boucher declined to comment on North Korea's reported announcement that it would postpone the forthcoming round of six-party talks due to Seoul's uranium-enrichment experiment issue.