N. Korea Nuclear Talks Deadlocked

Envoys to deadlocked North Korean nuclear talks will take a recess and resume negotiations the week of Aug. 29, the Chinese government announced Sunday.

A senior Chinese diplomat, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, warned that even after talks resume, "I can't say for sure that we will reach agreement."

North Korea representative, Vice Foreign Ministry Kim Kye Gwan, defended his country's stance, saying that the United States must remove its "nuclear threat" from the Korean Peninsula.

The disagreement over "peaceful nuclear activity" was "one of the very important elements that led us to fail to come up with an agreement," Kim told reporters at the North's Embassy in Beijing.

Kim repeated Pyongyang's insistence that Washington end what it says is a nuclear threat against the North.

"We had to produce nuclear weapons because the United States is threatening us with nuclear weapons," he said.

The decision was announced after chiefs of delegations from the six governments met for a 13th day on Sunday in a final attempt to agree on a joint statement of principles to guide future talks aimed at persuading North Korea to disarm.

Governments taking part in the talks include the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

"During the recess, the six parties will report to their respective governments and study ways to solve the differences. And they are supposed to maintain contact and consultations during that recess," Wu said.

Wu also issued a chairman's statement that said the six parties "reaffirmed that the goal of the six-party talks is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner and agreed to issue a common paper to this end."

The chief U.S. envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said earlier Saturday that the Americans were willing to stay "as long as we make progress." However, he warned, "If we're not going to make progress we're not going to be here."

Hill complained Friday night that the talks were moving too slowly and said he hoped Saturday meetings with Chinese and North Korean officials could produce a way to speed things up.

Hill said a recess was a possible option that would let the diplomats go home and review their work. But he said negotiators needed to ensure any diplomatic gains achieved this week were "locked in" so talks would not have to start from scratch when they reconvened.

Throughout the talks, delegates from the six governments have expressed determination to make progress but said their meetings were slow and difficult.

The North wants aid in exchange for freezing nuclear development and then more for dismantling the program. Washington wants to see the program verifiably dismantled before providing any rewards.

On Friday, Hill challenged North Korea's insistence on retaining a peaceful nuclear program, pointing to its questionable past record. He alluded to the North's main nuclear complex at Yongbyon, purportedly built for research with Soviet assistance but later turned into the headquarters for an atomic weapons program.

The chief North Korean negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, said Thursday his government should be allowed to retain the right to conduct "peaceful nuclear activities."

The United States opposes that demand because of suspicions the North could use those programs to make weapons.