Envoys from six nations entered a third day of talks yesterday, hoping to resolve just "one or two" issues standing in the way of a long-awaited deal to begin dismantling North Korea's nuclear program.
Talks centered on a draft accord circulated by host China outlining steps the six would take to begin getting North Korea to disarm, but "sticking points" remained.
"It's basically one or two items, but it can be best described as one item," US envoy Christopher Hill told reporters yesterday.
"I don't think it's the most important issue, but you never know what is important for the North Koreans. We'll have to see," he said.
Under the draft agreement, North Korea would close its main nuclear-related facilities, including a 5 megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, within two months in return for alternative energy sources, press reports said.
US officials described the agreement as very different from the nuclear freeze the Clinton administration negotiated in 1994, the New York Times said.
"This is the Libya model," the Times quoted one senior official as saying, referring to Libya's decision in late 2003 to turn over all the equipment it had purchased from the secret nuclear network run by a Pakistani scientist.
In that agreement, both the Libyans and the US took a series of steps that eventually rid the country of nuclear technology and ended its isolation.
Yesterday was spent in a flurry of bilateral and trilateral meetings at the Diaoyutai Guest House in western Beijing, scene of all six-party negotiations since their start four years ago.
Russian representative Alexander Losyukov said the talks would end with a two-page joint statement, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
China was expected to work out a proposal based on the draft, with revisions on issues such as how to provide aid to North Korea, Xinhua quoted Losyukov as saying.
"[North Korea] is very concerned about the wording of the joint statement," said Losyukov, who was quoted earlier by Xinhua as saying the talks might end before tomorrow.
A South Korean official told reporters that the delegates had kept "revising words or reflecting opinions."
Negotiations had "entered a period of labor pain," Japanese envoy Kenichiro Sasae said.
"It's a matter of balance between steps to be taken by North Korea and steps to be taken by our side in implementing what is written in the joint statement," he told reporters, referring to the September 2005 deal.
That deal fell through within just two months over North Korean objections to US financial sanctions imposed against it for alleged money laundering and counterfeiting.
Observers speculated that a deal would not be definitively announced until today at the earliest, since any agreement reached yesterday would need the approval of all six governments.
"Today and tomorrow will likely be the critical point," South Korean chief delegate Chun Yung-woo told reporters early yesterday.
Envoys refused to give specifics about the draft accord, but said it sought to begin implementing a six-party deal from September 2005.
In that deal, Pyongyang agreed to scrap its nuclear program in return for security guarantees, energy benefits and aid.
The potential breakthrough this week comes after North Korea conducted its first atomic test in October last year, an event it said confirmed its status as a global nuclear power, but which also drew UN sanctions.
The six-party forum began in 2003 with the aim of convincing North Korea to disarm.
But negotiations have seen many false dawns and failed to stop the regime from conducting its atomic test.
Piao Jianyi, an international relations scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the nation's top government think tank, said this session was likely to produce "a positive outcome," the state-run China Daily reported.
But he added: "It will be difficult for the negotiators to reach a consensus on how much economic compensation each party would pay for Pyongyang's commitment to give up its nuclear program."
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