China on Monday confirmed that the six-party talks aimed at convincing North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions would finally reconvene next week, after a year that had seen missile and nuclear tests but no multilateral discussions.

Following Pyongyang’s October agreement to return for a sixth round of talks, diplomats have been struggling to set a date to reconvene, let alone agree on what was to be discussed, underlining the challenges the parties will face when they meet for the long-awaited sixth round.