Seoul - South Korea's top diplomat said Friday that despite North Korea's backsliding at the international negotiations over giving up its nuclear weapons, the six-party talks still remain valid.

"It is still premature for us to say all of our efforts at the six-way talks ended up a failure," said Foreign Minister Yoo Myung-Hwan in a forum with lawmakers. "So it's premature for us to doubt the validity of the six-way talks."

The collapse of the latest round of talks, involving China, Japan, Russia, the United States and the two Koreas, which ended Thursday in Beijing, denies a diplomatic trophy to the lame-duck administration of outgoing US President George W Bush.

It has also led some local observers to question the usefulness of the talks which are aimed at persuading North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea may be tempted to wait until president-elect Barack Obama takes office in January instead of trying to settle for less at the negotiations still involving the waning Bush administration, they argue.

"North Korea may prefer direct talks with the new US new government," said Chon Sung-Hoon, a researcher at Korean Institute for National Unification (KINU).

Yoo, however, stressed that the six-party talks produced significant progress, although the pace was not as fast as had been forecast.

"President-elect Barack Obama will also likely be in a position to make contact directly with North Korea within the framework of the six-way talks," the minister added. (dpa)