U.S. says must speed up pace on North Korea talks

GENEVA, March 13 (Reuters) - The United States and North Korea held "substantive" negotiations on North Korea's nuclear activities on Thursday but the two sides need to speed up the pace of talks, top U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said. "We had very substantive discussions on format and actual substance that has divided us for 10 weeks," Hill told a news conference after a day of talks in Switzerland.

"I made clear to the DPRK (North Korea) delegation today that we need to pick up the pace. We are already in March and we have some ambitions for trying to get through this in 2008," he said. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay)