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The United States and its allies will be looking for "really important steps" toward denuclearization by North Korea at the next round of six-party talks, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday.

She did not set a deadline for the negotiations, but reaffirmed that the talks should not be held just for the sake of talks.

"What we don't want to do is to get into a circumstance where we are just talking about tit-for-tat, but rather keeping an eye on really important steps toward along the road of denuclearization," she told reporters after her meetings with Australia's foreign and defense ministers.

After a hiatus of nearly a year, the six-party talks restart in Beijing next week with the negotiators from South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan expected to discuss how to implement their agreement in September last year.

In last year's Sept. 19 joint statement, Pyongyang agreed to give up its nuclear weapons and programs in return for political and economic incentives from other parties.

North Korea faces demands that it take concrete steps toward dismantling the weapons and programs before the incentives are implemented.

In an interview Monday, Rice said the U.S. wants to see Pyongyang's denuclearization during the George W. Bush administration.

"It's the only timetable I've got because, you know, I will be long gone in two years. So of course that's my timetable," she said.

Asked the same question on Tuesday, she said no one is asking for a firm deadline.

"But I do think that there is an expectation in the international community that these talks are not for the sake of talks," she said.

The incentives have already been laid out in the Sept. 19 statement, she added, including economic and energy assistance and more political contact leading to eventual normalization of relations.

But she also reminded that next week's talks open under a different context created by Pyongyang's Oct. 9 nuclear weapon test.

The U.N. Security Council resolution "did send a very strong message" to the North that its nuclear program was unacceptable, Rice said.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said talks only for the sake of talks "would be pointless." "They have got to be talks that produce real outcomes," he said, "There are constructive ideas on the table."

He singled out China's role, saying there has been a "constructive and dramatic evolution" in its diplomacy. "It's very heartening to see that," he said.

Washington, Dec. 12 (Yonhap News)