South Korea sees little chance of holding a bilateral meeting with North Korea on the sidelines of a regional security forum next week in Cambodia, a senior official at Seoul’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.

The two-day Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum, set for July 12-13, is the region’s biggest security forum. Among those attending are the countries in the six-party negotiations to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, which involve North and South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

Diplomatic efforts to resume the six-party talks have been frozen since April, when North Korea defiantly launched a long-range rocket that failed moments after lift-off.

“We see very little possibility of holding a bilateral meeting with the North Korean side during the ARF,” the official said on the condition of anonymity.

“There seems to be little chance for producing a breakthrough towards talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program,” the official said.

However, the official left the door open for an inter-Korean contact organized by an “unofficial channel.”

Following North Korea’s botched rocket launch in April, South Korean officials have said it would be difficult for the six-party talks to be resumed this year, citing upcoming presidential elections in both Seoul and Washington.

The North’s failed launch ended a possible deal with the U.S.

in which Pyongyang agreed to suspend its nuclear and missile activities in return for food aid by Washington. Such conditions had been considered necessary steps to reopen the six-party talks.

Concerns persist that North Korea may soon conduct a third nuclear test to make up for its failed launch. The North’s previous two rocket launches in 2006 and 2009 were followed by nuclear tests. (Yonhap News)