- BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S.
and North Korean envoys were reported to be planning a face-to-face meeting
on Thursday to try to defuse the North's nuclear crisis, but Russia's envoy
said there was no chance of a breakthrough at second-tier talks.
-
- Envoys are in the Chinese capital for the first working-level
meeting of six-party talks on the crisis that also include South Korea
Russia, China and Japan. Veiled in secrecy, the discussions entered their
second day on Thursday.
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- U.S. chief delegate Joseph DeTrani and his North Korean
counterpart, Ri Gun, might discuss a U.S. demand that the North completely
dismantle its nuclear programs including a suspected uranium enrichment
program, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.
-
- But diplomatic sources and other news reports said the
North continued to reject demands to scrap all of its programs and was
sticking to its stiff denial of a uranium enrichment program.
-
- "We came to discuss compensation for a nuclear freeze.
A nuclear development program involving uranium enrichment does not exist,"
the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun quoted Ri as saying at talks on Wednesday.
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- Valery Sukhinin, head of the Russian delegation, told
the Itar-Tass news agency that no breakthrough could be expected at the
working-level session, China's Xinhua news agency said.
-
- Delegates could exchange views on details of some issues
but could not revise the stances of their governments, Sukhinin was quoted
as saying.
-
- "It seems that the meeting would go on for another
day, two days or three days, and all depends on the progress of the meeting,"
he said.
-
- Publicly, neither North Korea nor the United States,
the two main protagonists, has shown any willingness to budge from its
position during the inaugural talks that are intended to pave the way for
higher-level meetings.
-
- Pyongyang's state media, in typical form, kept up its
anti-U.S. vitriol on Thursday, accusing the "imperialists" of
preparing for war.
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- The first day of the six-way talks ended with the United
States and North Korea toughening their stands, a Russian negotiator said,
while South Korea urged its northern rival to be more flexible.
-
- The six-party working-level talks are open-ended and
could last several days.
-
- North Korea wants compensation to give up its nuclear
ambitions, with a deal for a freeze as a first step. The United States
wants the North to agree first to complete, verifiable and irreversible
dismantling.
-
- The United States, South Korea and Japan had agreed to
discuss energy aid on Wednesday, but only if the North pledged to give
up its nuclear programs, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Japanese
sources as saying.
-
- The North was willing to discuss issues related to the
freeze, including extent and duration and inspections to verify it, said
Japanese public broadcaster NHK.
-
- Kyodo said the North had also broached the possibility
of allowing foreign inspectors back into the country as a step toward dismantlement.
-
- The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when U.S.
officials said North Korea had disclosed it was working on a secret program
to enrich uranium for weapons in violation of an international agreement.
-
- North Korea, which denied the disclosure, then pulled
out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expelled U.N. inspectors and
took a plutonium plant out of mothballs.
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