BEIJING ( AP) — A U. S. envoy said today he made “a little bit of progress” in negotiations with North Korea on restarting efforts to dismantle its nuclear program in return for aid but downplayed hopes of any immediate solution to the standoff.

The talks in the Chinese capital were the first since Kim Jong Il’s death upended a tentative deal in which the U.S. would have provided food aid in return for Pyongyang suspending its uranium enrichment.

The restarted negotiations were being closely watched for possible changes in bargaining position under the new leadership of the North’s opaque government, but U.S. envoy Glyn Davies said he noticed no significant change in the talks.

“There was nothing stylistically or substantively dramatically different in terms of how the North Koreans were presenting their positions,” he said.

Davies told reporters that after a day-and-a-half of discussions he had no breakthrough to announce and that Washington and its allies, Japan and South Korea, needed to evaluate what the North Korean negotiators told him.

“I think we made a little bit of progress,” Davies told a news conference where he described the talks as serious and substantive.

Issues Davies discussed included North Korea’s uranium enrichment facility at the Yongbyon nuclear site, U.S. food aid and human rights.

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