Monday's talks mark the first meeting between all of the delegates from the six countries involved since their last round of talks in July.

Now let's briefly review what has transpired between the two rounds of negotiations relating to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Monday's talks mark the first meeting between all of the delegates from the six countries involved since their last round of talks in July.[CCTV.com]

The previous round of six-party talks was held on July 10th in Beijing. That got underway after Pyongyang presented a list of its nuclear programs and toppled the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.

In the following month the United States said Washington would not take Pyongyang off its terrorism blacklist -- unless an adequate verification protocol was reached.

In response, the DPRK threatened to restart its nuclear complex in Yongbyon.

September saw a step backward in the denuclearzation process, as Pyongyang claimed it had resumed its nuclear activity.

At the beginning of October top US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill went to Pyongyang, making a last-gasp bid to save the nuclear disarmament process. He returned two days later and said the talks between him and relevant DPRK officials were "substantive".

Later in October the US said it would remove the DPRK from its terrorism blacklist after reaching an agreement with Pyongyang on nuclear verification. And the DPRK said it would resume disabling Yongbyon in reaction to Washington's decision.