WASHINGTON - A U.S. envoy will hold talks with North Korea on its nuclear program in Beijing next week, the first such negotiations since the death of that nation's longtime leader Kim Jong Il.

The U.S. envoy on North Korea, Glyn Davies, will meet Feb. 23 with North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters Monday.

It will be the third round of such bilateral talks since the middle of last year, aimed at restarting six-nation aid-for-disarmament negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program that it pulled out of in 2009.

It also will be the first such contact since Kim died Dec. 17 and power passed to his untested youngest son, Kim Jong Un. It could signal the new regime's willingness to deal with Washington and address international worries over its nuclear and missile programs.

"We thought that it was a good time to see where they are, and it makes good sense to give them an opportunity to see if they are ready to answer the questions that we have," Nuland said.

Shortly before the elder Kim died of a heart attack, the U.S. and impoverished North Korea, wartime enemies, appeared close to a deal on food aid. The North was expected to suspend uranium enrichment, the main hurdle to restarting the six-party talks.

Nuland said the primary focus of next week's talks would be the six-party talks, but food aid, discussed with Pyongyang in December by U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights issues, Robert King, also could be on the agenda although King will not be in the U.S. delegation.

"Obviously, if they want to talk about nutrition and they have the answers to some of the concerns and questions that we had then we'll be prepared to hear that," Nuland said.

The U.S. has said repeatedly that any decision on food aid would be driven by North Korea's need for it and U.S. satisfaction that any aid would not be diverted to the powerful military. The North requested the food aid more than a year ago. The last U.S.-funded food distributions ended in 2009 after North Korea expelled staff monitoring its distribution.

However, it increasingly appears that the food aid issue has become intertwined with efforts to persuade the North to live up to its previous commitments on denuclearization.

Pyongyang has said previously that it is willing to restart the six-party talks, which also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, but the U.S. and its allies are demanding that the North demonstrate its sincerity in ending its drive to acquire nuclear weapons.

Since pulling out of the six-party talks three years ago, the North has conducted a long-range rocket test and its second-ever nuclear test in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. It also has unveiled a uranium enrichment program that could give it a new means for making fissile material that could go into a nuclear weapon.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.