Envoys to six-party talks on ending the North Korean nuclear crisis met in the Chinese capital yesterday but analysts saw scant chance of a breakthrough with Pyongyang demanding rewards for freezing its atomic programs.
North Korea's state media blamed the US for increasing tensions and preached solidarity with South Korea in typical bombast seen by analysts as a means to drive a wedge among Washington and its allies at the table.
The US, South Korea and Japan had agreed to discuss energy aid in the session, which also brought together North Korea, Russia and China, but only if the North pledged to give up its nuclear programs, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Japanese sources as saying.
Neither North Korea nor the US, the two protagonists in the standoff, have shown any willingness to budge from their positions during the inaugural working-level talks that are intended to pave the way for higher-level meetings.
North Korea wants compensation to give up its nuclear ambitions, with a deal for a freeze as a first step. The US wants Pyongyang to agree first to complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement.
Some analysts have said the administration of US President George W. Bush has no intention of making compromises before the November presidential election and that North Korea, sensing that, would stick to its guns.
The six sides held a morning session and were to meet again at 2:00pm, sources said.
The talks are open-ended and expected to last for several days.
On Tuesday, both Washington and Pyongyang restated their deeply entrenched stands. North Korea demanded its "reward for freeze" proposal be taken up while the US refused to offer the North rewards for meeting international obligations.
Yesterday, the North pressed its anti-US attack and urged South Korea, defended by 37,000 US troops and still technically at war with the North, to join it.
"A touch-and-go tension in the true sense of the word is persisting in Korea due to the US imperialists' reckless moves to start a war against the DPRK under the pretext of the nuclear issue," said the Rodong Sinmun, the North's main daily newspaper.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
On Tuesday, host China said expectations from the talks should be reasonable, stressing that the various parties still differed over what the first step towards the abandonment of the North's nuclear programs should be.
Rodger Baker, an analyst with US-based intelligence unit Stratfor who tracks North Korea, said Pyongyang appeared far more willing to cut a deal than the US.
"I don't see the United States making some sort of effort to try to change things," he said. "I think the North Koreans are a little closer to some agreement."
North Korea was unlikely to be ready, however, to scrap its programs.
"They obviously never had and have no intention of completely removing all of their nuclear programs but they're looking to make some sort of accommodation," he said.
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