BEIJING - Envoys to North Korean disarmament talks extended their negotiations through Friday, amid signs they were struggling to secure Pyongyang's firm commitment to disabling its nuclear facilities by the end of the year.
Officials from six nations - China, Japan, Russia, the U.S. and the two Koreas - are meeting in Beijing to set the next target date in the North's disarmament following the recent shutdown of the country's sole operating nuclear reactor.
Washington wants the North to give U.N. inspectors a full list of its nuclear programs and disable its facilities this year, steps that would make it hard for North Korea to resume making nuclear bombs.
But South Korea's nuclear envoy said after Thursday's talks that getting Pyongyang to commit to a specific deadline would be "difficult" at the current round. Chun Yung-woo declined to elaborate but said China was preparing a statement to be issued at the end of the talks.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said the session was being prolonged so the sides could meet again Friday. "I don't know why," he added.
Chun said North Korea started off the talks Wednesday with an offer to disable its nuclear programs this year. Hill has declined to discuss details of the disarmament talks but said before they opened Thursday that there had been consensus on a "target timeframe."
"We missed just about every deadline and we don't want to do that anymore," he said, referring to the frequent hiccups in the negotiating process since the standoff began in late 2002. "We have to be careful about deadlines, but if you don't have deadlines you'll never get stuff done."
The North twice boycotted talks for more than a year, and missed a deadline for shutting down its reactor by more than three months due to a separate bank dispute. Pyongyang shut down its sole operating nuclear reactor Saturday - the first step it has taken to scale back its nuclear ambitions since the crisis began.
By eventually disabling its nuclear facilities, North Korea would lose its ability to easily make more atomic bombs - going beyond achievements at any previous arms negotiations with Pyongyang. The North conducted an underground nuclear test in October, confirming it could build a weapon.
North Korea has begun receiving 50,000 tons of oil from South Korea as a reward for the shutdown, and is to eventually receive the equivalent of a total of 1 million tons for disabling its nuclear facilities under a February agreement among the six countries.
Because the North can only receive about 50,000 tons of oil a month, Hill said other types of aid could be offered such as helping refurbish factories or storage facilities.
Hill said the U.S. also was interested in providing humanitarian aid to the North. Washington previously had been a large donor to the impoverished country, mainly through the U.N., but scaled back its contributions as the nuclear crisis sank into a deadlock.
"We're very concerned about the plight of the North Korean people and would like to see what can be done," he said Thursday.
The nuclear detente also has fostered improved relations between the two Koreas, who have taken unprecedented steps to lay aside decades of hostility since a 2000 summit.
South Korea said Thursday it had proposed another round of high-level talks with the North for early next month, where the countries typically discuss aid and economic cooperation. The North has yet to respond to the offer, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Nam-sik said in Seoul.
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Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang and Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report.
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