WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) ― In a rare meeting in China late last month, North Korea made clear to the United States that it would continue its nuclear programs as long as the U.S. maintains what it termed a hostile policy, a news report said Tuesday.

Clifford Hart, the Obama administration’s special envoy to the now-suspended six-party talks, met informally with two senior North Korean officials in Dalian, China, on the sidelines of the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue.

The two-day forum from Sept. 27 drew government officials and academics from the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, which are the members of the six-party talks on North Korean denuclearization.

Han Song-ryol, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, and Choe Son-hui, the deputy director-general of the North American affairs bureau at its foreign ministry, told Hart that Pyongyang “will not continue on its path to denuclearization, as promised in 2005” until Washington averts its policy, according to the Cable, an online news provider specializing in foreign affairs.

It cited “two government officials briefed on the meeting.”

Under the 2005 deal, produced at the six-way talks, North Korea vowed to abandon all nuclear weapons programs in return for political and economic rewards.

North Korea’s threat to break the agreement is not new. But the reported comments by Han and Choe in such an unusual chance for direct talks with the U.S. were a reminder of the wide gulf between the two sides after more than three years of impasse in the denuclearization process.

“No progress was made on toward resuming negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program,” the two unidentified U.S. officials were quoted as saying.

The State Department did not respond immediately to Yonhap News Agency’s inquiry on the report.