U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday he hoped both the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States could "be a little more creative" when the two sides restart talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

Speaking in a radio interview, 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."

U.S. President Donald Trump met with DPRK leader Kim Jong Un last month. During the meeting, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to cross into DPRK, 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 U.S. insisted DPRK completely denuclearize and DPRK pushed for relief from sanctions.

"I hope (the DPRK) will come to the table with ideas that they didn't have the first time," Pompeo said. "We hope we can be a little more creative too."

However, Pompeo added: "The president's mission hasn't changed: to fully and finally denuclearize (the DPRK) in a way that we can verify. That's the mission set for these negotiations."

While Trump's latest meeting with Kim demonstrated a rapport between the two, policy analysts say the two sides appear no closer to narrowing their differences. They have yet even to agree a common definition of denuclearization, which the DPRK has taken to include the U.S. nuclear umbrella protecting Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK).

Washington has demanded that Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons unilaterally, and U.S. officials have said U.S. policy continues to maintain sanctions on the DPRK until it gives up its nuclear weapons.

Ahead of February's failed summit in Hanoi, U.S. officials had raised the possibility that while sanctions would remain, they might be willing to take interim steps such as boosting humanitarian aid or opening liaison offices.

But at the summit they rejected the DPRK's offer to dismantle its reactor complex at Yongbyon in exchange for wide-ranging sanctions relief, and the steps Washington has so far offered have fallen far short of DPRK expectations.

ROK officials have expressed uncertainty that the talks between the U.S. and the DPRK can take place this month.

On Sunday, ROK's Yonhap news agency quoted unnamed diplomatic sources as saying that the U.S. had proposed to the DPRK that working-level talks be held this week and was awaiting a response.

The DPRK has frozen missile and nuclear bomb testing since 2017, but U.S. officials believe Pyongyang has continued to expand its arsenal by producing bomb fuel and missiles.

The State Department said last week it would hope to see a complete freeze in the DPRK nuclear program as the start of a process of denuclearization.

(Cover: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at the State Department in Washington, October 3, 2018. /Reuters Photo)