The US pointman on North Korea said he hoped to resume six-party talks on the country's nuclear weapons programme next month as he arrived in Vietnam ahead of talks on Wednesday with the group's other members.
Christopher Hill was due to meet South Korean and Japanese negotiators on Wednesday on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) annual meeting due to bring leaders from 21 member nations to Hanoi.
He said he also hoped to meet his Russian and Chinese counterparts to pave the way and agree on a start date for resuming joint talks with the communist regime which tested a nuclear bomb on October 9.
"On North Korea there'll be some meetings on the side to deal with that situation," said Hill, shortly after arriving in the Vietnamese capital.
"I'll be talking to my South Korean and Japanese colleagues.
"Also probably I'll be seeing the Russians and the Chinese, and we look forward to further preparations as we get ready to restart the six-party talks, probably some time in December."
Past talks hosted by North Korea's key ally China, and which stalled a year ago, failed to deter Pyongyang from conducting the nuclear test which triggered global condemnation and UN sanctions.
North Korea said this month it is ready to resume negotiations.
Hill, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said good preparations were key to achieving a successful outcome.
"We have said all along we want to start the six-party talks as soon as possible, but a key element of that is to be well prepared because when we do start we want to be sure that we can really make progress," he said.
North Korea, an isolated Stalinist regime and the only one of the six nations that is not an APEC member, is set to be a key topic at the forum's meeting of foreign ministers and at its leaders' summit this weekend.
It was uncertain whether APEC members would issue a separate statement on North Korea, a proposal diplomatic sources said China would likely oppose, or whether they would include a reference to the crisis in a final statement.