WASHINGTON, July 8: America’s chief negotiator for the North Korean missile and nuclear crises has offered to hold direct talks with the communist regime as a US guided-missile destroyer arrived in Japan to lessen the impact of last week’s missile tests.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who left Washington on Friday to consult US allies in Southeast Asia, told reporters he was willing to meet bilaterally with North Korean officials on the sidelines of six-party talks.

The US has so far been refusing to hold direct talks with the North Korea, urging it instead to return to the six-party talks which include the US, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and North Korea. The six-party talks are held in Beijing.

Meanwhile, the US has sent a guided-missile destroyer to Japan in the wake of North Korea’s testing of seven missiles over the Sea of Japan last week.

Reports say the destroyer has a missile-tracking system. It arrived at Japan’s Yokosuka military base on Saturday.

Mr Hill, now on a tour of nations involved in the stalled six-party negotiations, however, rejected another North Korean demand that Washington lift financial sanctions against Pyongyang before resuming nuclear.

On Friday, diplomats at the United Nations said there would be no Security Council vote on a binding resolution authorizing sanctions against North Korea until at least Monday.

The US, Japan, Britain and France presented the draft resolution in response to Pyongyang’s missile tests.

The resolution calls on member states to prevent the transfer to North Korea of any type of material that could be used in missiles or weapons of mass destruction. It also instructs North Korea to immediately stop developing, deploying and testing ballistic missiles, and to return to six-party negotiations on its nuclear programme.