China To Take Lead In Checking North Korea Claims

Many analysts have said North Korea is unlikely to make any serious moves before U.S. President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.

China has been put in charge of drafting a document to spell out how to check North Korea's declaration of its nuclear activities as part of a multilateral disarmament-for-aid deal, Washington's envoy said on Monday.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who is attempting to seal a rare diplomatic success for outgoing President George W. Bush, said however it was too early to say if an agreement could be reached between the six countries.

"What the Chinese are going to try to do is to put together a draft and circulate something tomorrow," Hill told reporters.

"We'll see what the verification paper looks like tomorrow ... I think it's premature to say that," he said of a possible agreement.

Negotiators are focused on coaxing Pyongyang into accepting verification rules to check a formal listing of its nuclear activities which it gave in exchange for aid and improved diplomatic standing.

Many analysts have said North Korea is unlikely to make any serious moves before U.S. President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.

Further complicating the six-party talks are the souring of relations between North and South Korea, and a feud between Pyongyang and Tokyo over the kidnapping of Japanese nationals decades ago.

The talks bring together North and South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia.

North Korea held its first atomic test explosion in 2006 and the on-again-off-again talks, begun in 2003, have made halting progress since then.

FLEXIBLE

China's chief negotiator, Wu Dawei, urged envoys to be flexible during three days of scheduled talks as they waded into the contentious issues of how to check the secretive North's nuclear claims.

"We should participate in the meeting with a flexible and pragmatic attitude. We need joint efforts to narrow differences," Wu said at the start of the meeting, the Xinhua news agency reported.

But not all participants were optimistic. Before the latest talks started, South Korea's nuclear envoy, Kim Sook, held out little hope for major movement in the Beijing talks.

"I'm afraid nobody among my counterparts showed any optimism in the prospect of the coming six-party talks," Kim told reporters in Beijing.

Earlier this year, the North began dismantling its main Yongbyon nuclear facility.

The most recent point of contention has been the North's reluctance to allow international inspectors to take nuclear samples out of the country for testing. Washington maintains Pyongyang is obliged to allow such tests.

But many analysts do not expect North Korea to make any serious moves until Obama takes office.

On Saturday, North Korea also said it would ignore Japan at the talks, further testing ties damaged over the kidnappings of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents decades ago.

Japan has said it will not join in providing aid to North Korea unless the matter of its abductees has been resolved.