The United States hopes to have bilateral talks with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) "within the six-party context," a senior State Department official said here on Friday.

"We are prepared to enter into a bilateral discussion with North Korea, but it's important to characterize it properly," Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley told a daily news briefing.

"It's a bilateral discussion that (is) hopefully ... within the six-party context, and it's designed to convince North Korea to come back to the six-party process and to take affirmative steps towards denuclearization," Crowley noted.

The Obama administration said it was open to bilateral talks with DPRK officials, but only in the context of the six-party talks process, which had involved the DPRK, the United States, China, the Republic of Korea, Japan and Russia since 2003.

Washington insists that the six-party talks are the most effective way to achieve the settlement of nuclear issues in the Korean Peninsula.

(Xinhua News Agency September 12, 2009)