"North Korea should stop pressing its demands too hard. The United States is also required to ease its stance for the momentum of dialogue," Unification Minister Jeong Se-Hyun said.

His comment comes as top diplomats from South Korea, Japan and the United States gather in Washington to fine-tune preparations for a second round of six-nation talks originally expected to take place this month.

US officials warned Tuesday that North Korea may be stalling over key conditions for resolving the nuclear crisis and talks could be pushed back until early next year.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, however, played down the idea that the talks had hit a roadblock.

There is "no deadlock in the talks. The talks will take place," Powell said Wednesday during a visit to Morocco.

"They haven't been postponed because they haven't been scheduled to begin with."

Jeong also said "progress can be made" at talks this week between Mitoji Yabunaka, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceania Affairs Bureau, South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-Hyuck and James Kelly, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

"China and South Korea are trying hard to mediate between the United States and North Korea. So you don't have to think that the talks will not take place this month."

"Things could improve," the minister said, referring to Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's visit to Washington next week for talks with US President George W. Bush.

A senior State Department official said Washington was "ready to go" but conceded there were "competing ideas" about how the talks should work.

According to news reports in Seoul and Tokyo, the United States rejected a Chinese-backed draft of a proposed joint statement for the new round of talks.

The draft statement envisaged a security guarantee for Pyongyang in return for its declaration that the Stalinist country would scrap its nuclear program and return to an international nuclear safeguard accord, Yonhap news agency here said.

The United States says no such guarantee would be forthcoming until North Korea verifiably dismantles its nuclear program, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.