The State Department's Casey said the United States hoped six-party talks would resume within the next few weeks.

"We are hopeful that the next set of negotiations within the six-party framework will lead to some concrete results," Casey said.

Hill said there was also a tentative date for separate talks on a US crackdown on reclusive North Korea's external financing.

Washington has squeezed firms it suspects of aiding Pyongyang in illicit activities such as counterfeiting. It has designated a bank in Macau as a money-laundering concern, effectively cutting off the North's main banking conduit to the outside world.

Pyongyang has said the financial sanctions must be lifted before any progress can be made in the nuclear negotiations, and KCNA repeated its demand on Friday.

South Korea's foreign minister said he expected the talks between US and North Korean financial officials to take place in the United States next week.

Chun said the discussions in Berlin went beyond logistics.

"There were some very substantive discussions on the steps for dismantling (the North's) nuclear programs," he told reporters, declining to elaborate.

But the United States has denied the Berlin meeting amounted to bilateral negotiations -- which Pyongyang has long demanded -- saying they were talks about resuming talks.

"I want to emphasize once again that the negotiations for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula take place at the six-party talks," Hill said. "But we've always felt it useful to have discussions between rounds of six-party talks."

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