US, North Korea seek action to match words

A North Korean offer to freeze but not dismantle its nuclear programs in return for a compensation package was unacceptable, the chief US negotiator at the talks, Christopher Hill, told reporters on Friday.

"Our view is that stopping their programs is simply something they have to do," Hill said. "We don't want to get into a situation where they stop the programs -- in short freeze the programs -- and then expect compensation over a freeze."

But Pyongyang wants the US to give concessions at the same time as any disarmament moves from North Korea, the North's chief negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan, told reporters in Beijing. "The important thing is to take simultaneous actions," he said. He said North Korea favoured "step-by-step measures."

The comments from the two sides underscored how far they remain apart as the fifth round of so-called six-party talks, also involving South Korea, Japan, Russia and host China, broke off on Friday.

In a breakthrough deal agreed to in September, North Korea said it would disarm in exchange for aid and security guarantees. It is also demanding a light-water reactor for civil use.

But Hill said on Friday that any full agreement depended on North Korea shutting downs its nuclear activities and accounting for its nuclear stockpiles, including uranium enrichment activities that Pyongyang has never formally acknowledged.

"We are not going to have a nuclear deal without resolution of that issue," he said of the uranium enrichment.

In the coming weeks, the six countries were likely to form groups of experts to negotiate the "technical underbrush" of a potential disarmament agreement, Hill said.