Representatives from the U.S. will sit down with officials from South Korea, China, Japan and Russia next week to discuss issues surrounding North Korea's April fifth rocket launch.

According to Japan's Kyodo News Agency, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg announced the plan in a meeting with Seiji Maehara --- the vice chairman of Japan's Democratic Party --- during his visit to the U.S.

According to the visiting Japanese politician, Steinberg said the U.S. is unwilling to engage in direct contact with the North outside the six-way nuclear talk framework.

His statement is inconsistent with remarks made by other top U.S. officials such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special U.S. envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth.

Steinberg was also reported as saying that North Korea's boycott of the six-party nuclear talks was “not unexpected.”

Pyongyang decided not to return to the multilateral disarmament talks in protest of the U.N. Security Council's adoption of a presidential statement condemning the North's rocket launch.