EVIAN, France -- The United States rejected a North Korean request on Sunday for bilateral talks on its nuclear weapons program, but agreed with China on the urgent need to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.

"We cannot let this drift too long," a senior administration official said after President George W. Bush met China's President Hu Jintao in Evian, France, where they were attending a summit of group of eight leaders.

North Korea used hu to deliver its message that any multilateral talks could only come after bilateral talks with Washington, AFP reported.

While Bush and Hu agreed it was "urgent to get North Korea back to the table," the American official said any talks would have to be multilateral, and he said China agreed.

But once in that "multilateral format", U.S. and North Korean diplomats could talk directly to each other across the negotiating table, the official said.

After talks earlier on Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Bush said Washington and Moscow were single-minded on the need for North Korea to "visibly, verifiably and irreversibly dismantle its nuclear weapons program".

Washington said it would hold additional consultations with allies Japan and South Korea before deciding how to proceed.

The White House said Bush and Hu did not discuss the possibility of using economic sanctions to step up pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions. Bush made clear it expected China to remain engaged.

"We don't think we have enough influence by ourselves to change North Korean behavior," the senior administration official said. --- Bush Wants China Involved --- "The president believes and continues to say to the Chinese that we think, `You have a lot of influence over North Korea and probably in many ways more than the U.S. has'."

It is not uncommon for North Korea to use its long-time ally China to relay messages to the United States.

According to a senior administration official, China said North Korea was seeking "some sort of bilateral contact as the price for a multilateral meeting," which Washington said would include China, South Korea and Japan.

Bush made clear that was not acceptable, the official said.

"Let me be clear. It's got to be a multilateral meeting. We're not going to pull aside. We're not going to go into a separate room," the administration official said. But he added: "Within those multilateral talks, if the North Koreans look us in the eye on one corner of the table and say things directly to us, we're going to listen, obviously, and we will do the same thing back to them."

The Chinese acknowledged that the proposal they relayed to Washington for bilateral talks was "not only not likely but also not productive," the American official said.

Bush is pressing for a diplomatic solution to the standoff but has not ruled any options out.

Tensions have been high on the Korean peninsula for more than seven months since the United States said the Communist North had revealed it was pursuing a secret nuclear arms program.

South Korea's navy fired warning shots on Sunday after North Korean fishing boats crossed the border between the rival nations, raising tensions further.