US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hopes North Korea and the United States can "be a little more creative" when they restart talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
Speaking in a radio interview on The Sean Hannity Show, Pompeo did not say when the negotiations would resume.
At the end of June he had said it would likely happen "sometime in July ... probably in the next two or three weeks".
President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month. During the meeting, Trump became the first sitting US president to cross into North Korea and he said the pair agreed to restart working-level talks.
Trump and Kim have met three times and held two summits over the nuclear issue. The talks in Hanoi in February collapsed without agreement, as the United States insisted North Korea completely denuclearise and North Korea pushed for relief from sanctions.
"I hope the North Koreans will come to the table with ideas that they didn't have the first time," Pompeo said in Monday's radio interview.
"We hope we can we be a little more creative too."
However, Pompeo said: "The president's mission hasn't changed: to fully and finally denuclearise North Korea in a way that we can verify. That's the mission set for these negotiations."
Australian Associated Press
