N Korea nuclear talks end in stalemate

High-level talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme will end on Saturday after encountering “differences” and “difficulties” and will be continued by the six nations involved through lower-level working groups, news reports and Chinese officials said.

One report said the next round of six-party talks by senior delegates will be held before the end of April.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said the working groups will discuss energy aid to the impoverished North in return for a nuclear freeze and “comprehensive nuclear abandonment” by Pyongyang.

The talks in Beijing have so far remained civil but little apparent progress has been made and both main players – the United States and North Korea – remain deeply at odds over the fate of the North’s nuclear ambitions.

China’s chief delegate, Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, said earlier today that there were “differences, difficulties and contradictions” among the sides.

The standoff began in October 2002 when the United States said the North acknowledged a nuclear programme that, according to Washington, it promised not to have under a 1994 agreement.

North Korea’s five negotiating partners all say they want the Korean Peninsula to be nuclear-free.

During this week’s talks, South Korea, China and Russia offered to give the impoverished North crucial energy aid if it agrees to disarm. The North also said it would eliminate its nuclear programme, but went on hours later to condemn what it called American intransigence.