Russia's representative at talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis said yesterday all six sides had basically agreed on a document to be signed today and planned to meet again by October, Itar-Tass reported.

"It is practically agreed, and most likely will be accepted tomorrow," Tass quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov as saying after a second day of talks in Beijing.

"There is a mutual understanding that we should not drag our feet on the next round of negotiations and we should carry them out in the next two months," he said, adding that the next round was also likely to be in Beijing.

Meanwhile, the United States yesterday followed up a rare conversation with North Korea by spurning Pyongyang's demand for formal bilateral meetings on the second day of six-nation talks to resolve a 10-month nuclear crisis.

Negotiators from the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, Japan and host China held a series of "one on one" meetings in the afternoon, delegation sources said. It was unclear if another US-North Korea meeting took place.

After months of threats and rhetoric, the United States and North Korea joined the other four nations on Wednesday for three days of negotiations on the isolated North's nuclear program, just how far it has progressed and whether it can be reversed.

The talks are seen as just the first in a series of tough rounds of negotiation based on agreement among the five other parties that Pyongyang must not develop nuclear weapons.

Even agreement to meet again would likely be hailed as a sign of success in handling Pyongyang's half-declared desire to become a nuclear power that triggered the standoff.

"Discussion today focused on how to announce the result of the talks," said South Korean delegation spokesman Shim Bong-kil.

"All of the delegates are working hard on the wording of the final statement," he said, adding that Friday's closing session would be held between 9:30 and 10 a.m. (9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. EDT Thursday).

Seoul's Yonhap News Agency quoted a high-ranking South Korean government official in Beijing as saying that a second round of six-way talks was likely to take place in the Chinese capital in October. There was no immediate confirmation of the report.

Wednesday's session was distinguished by the informal chat US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly had with North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Yong-il as they sat together on a sofa during a coffee break -- the first such conversation in four months.

"There will not be any separate formal bilateral meetings with the North Koreans," a US embassy spokeswoman told reporters in Beijing.

Japan's Kyodo news agency said Pyongyang's envoy may have approached Kelly with a new proposal but gave no details.

In a sign of the vast divisions at the table, the United States has already rejected North Korea's core demand that the two sign a non-aggression treaty, a Japanese press report said.

The United States, which says Pyongyang may already have one or two nuclear weapons, is looking initially for a commitment that Pyongyang will scrap its program. North Korea wants security guarantees before dismantling.

Last year President Bush lumped North Korea in an "axis of evil" with pre-war Iraq and Iran, infuriating North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il.

Japan, within range of North Korean missiles and the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack, has insisted Pyongyang must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. Tokyo also wants issues such as Pyongyang's missile program and its abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s to be addressed.

Japan and North Korea held talks on Thursday but showed little sign of resolving a row over the abductions.

But the stands of the two main protagonists, the United States and North Korea, are marked by an absence of trust. Each blames the other for a failure to live up to the terms of a 1994 deal to freeze North Korea's nuclear program, and say they have no reason to believe future promises.

With Kelly holding a brief only to listen, and North Korea's most junior deputy foreign minister certainly unable to act without approval from "Dear Leader" Kim, real progress appears virtually impossible.