A final push was under way yesterday to save North Korean disarmament talks from failure after the Stalinist state insisted it must retain the right to operate nuclear programs for peaceful purposes.
The contentious issue has deadlocked six-nation negotiations that also involve China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US, forcing them into an 11th day.
The US and North Korea met again yesterday morning, sources said, after the North's chief delegate Kim Kye-gwan told reporters that "all nations in the world should have the right to undertake peaceful nuclear activities."
The US State Department has previously voiced concern that any atomic program could be turned into a nuclear weapons project and Washington wants to see a complete dismantling of all North Korea's nuclear facilities.
US envoy Christopher Hill indicated that he was not ready to compromise, pointing to previous reported moves by the North to accumulate plutonium that could be used to make a bomb from its Yongbyon research complex.
"We have concerns as we look back to the recent past, and how a research reactor over the course of several weeks returned to a weapons-producing facility," he told reporters. "We have got to have an agreement to protect our interests."
Despite the impasse, a ray of light emerged with an apparent new proposal put forward by South Korea which brokered a meeting with North Korea and the US on Thursday.
It was not clear what was suggested but Seoul has already offered to supply its isolated neighbor with some 2,000 megawatts of electricity if it abandons its nuclear ambitions.
A South Korean official characterized the meeting as "planting a seed."
"It remains to be seen if the seed fell on fertile land or barren and dry land," he said.
The country's top envoy to the talks, Song Min-soon, said work was under way on further refining the text of a joint document setting out how North Korea might abandon its atomic arsenal and what it would get in return.
"Drafting work will continue because we felt a possible need for a new draft after South Korea, North Korea and the US held a trilateral meeting yesterday," said Song, a deputy foreign minister.
"All countries must make efforts to reach a compromise because they cannot deny the possibility that a gap can be narrowed," he said.
In an effort to bridge the gap, South Korea met seperately with both the US and North Korea on Friday, while the US and the North had a bilateral meeting at deputy envoy level, sources said.
The talks are also struggling to overcome another hurdle -- in exchange for dismantlement the North has also demanded normalization of ties with the US, as well as economic assistance and non-aggression guarantees.
The US has persistently said that the North needs to give up its weapons programs before it gets aid and energy.
Despite the lack of an agreement, all sides in the talks want to keep the negotiations going, said Hill and others.
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