N.Korea Talks Delegates Meet Behind Closed Doors

[Dover]

BEIJING (Reuters) - Envoys to six-party talks on ending the North Korean nuclear crisis met in the Chinese capital on Wednesday but analysts saw scant chance of a breakthrough with Pyongyang demanding rewards for freezing its atomic programs.

Communist North Korea's state media blamed the United States for stoking nuclear tensions and preached solidarity with rival South Korea in typical bombast seen by analysts as a means to drive a wedge among Washington and its allies at the table.

The United States, 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 United States, 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 United States wants Pyongyang to agree first to complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement.......>


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