N Korea rocks nuke deal with reactor demand

The US State Department said the North's views, set out in a lengthy statement, did not match the agreement it signed at six-country talks in Beijing. Japan said the North's demand was unacceptable and China asked all sides to fulfil their promises.

Seoul said it would take the lead role in bridging the gap between the US and North Korean positions.

The six countries, also including Russia, had agreed on Monday to a set of principles on winding up Pyongyang's nuclear programmes in return for aid and recognizing its right to a civilian nuclear programme. The six agreed to discuss providing a light-water reactor "at an appropriate time."

Analysts noted the North had backtracked on seemingly rock-solid positions before, and so the deal was not dead yet.

"They've chosen the appropriate time to discuss it is now," said Peter Hayes, a North Korea expert at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. "I think what they're doing is negotiating. They're putting out a maximal position."

The North's Foreign Ministry statement could be mostly aimed at its own people, said Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Waseda University in Tokyo and an expert on North Korea.

While official reaction to the end of the fourth round of talks had been upbeat, sceptics had already said the deal was long on words, vague on timing and sequence, and short on action.

The North's comments exposed those shortcomings.

"The US should not even dream of the issue of the DPRK's dismantlement of its nuclear deterrent before providing LWRs," said the statement, published by KCNA news agency. "This is our just and consistent stand as solid as a deeply rooted rock."

DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. LWRs are light-water reactors that experts say are more proliferation-resistant than others.

As the North has given ground before, its statement may not be the last word. After the first round in August 2003, it said just a day after the talks it saw no need for more.

"It could be a lot of bluster," said one US official in Washington. But Tuesday's statement posed at least a challenge to a deal which less than 24 hours earlier delegates applauded.

"This was obviously not the agreement they signed and we will see what the coming weeks bring," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, referring to the gap before talks are set to resume in November. Japan took the same view.

Referring to its nuclear deterrent, North Korea's chief delegate, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, told reporters in Beijing: "There will be no such thing as giving it up first."

Seoul said the North's comments were no surprise.