The U.S. State Department says the U.S. will not have any substantive bilateral talks with North Korea outside the six-party context.

In a daily news briefing Monday, spokesman Ian Kelly said the goal of a potential U.S.-North Korea bilateral meeting is to get Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks.

He said that U.S. envoys on the North Korean issue Stephen Bosworth and Sung Kim went to the East Asian region and discussed with their partners the various avenues to get North Korea to return to the multilateral talks.

Kelly said North Korea has recently invited Bosworth to visit Pyongyang, but no decision has been made as to whether or not the U.S. will accept the invitation.