Talks involving US and North Korean delegations have begun in Beijing on the crisis surrounding the renewal of Pyongyang's nuclear programme.
Chinese officials are also attending the discussions, which are the first between the parties since the stand-off began last October. A US embassy spokeswoman said the talks were expected to continue as scheduled until Friday, but had no details of the discussions.
In advance of the meeting, the United States said the negotiations would be genuinely multilateral, and that China was attending as a full participant.
North Korea had been looking for bilateral talks with Washington.
As the talks got underway, an EU parliamentary delegation in Seoul called for multilateral talks on the issue between seven parties.
Following a meeting with South Korean lawmakers, delegation member Glyn Ford urged North Korea to enter talks involving North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Russia and the EU.
'We recognize that in the end there will have to be bilateral negotiations between North Korea and the United States but the way to get there is through multilateral negotiations,' he said.
