U.S., N. Korea N-talks longest in over a decade

BEIJING -- The top U.S. envoy held his longest meeting yet Thursday with his North Korean counterpart and said he hoped they would soon be able to draft a joint document that would signal some progress in talks aimed at curbing the North's nuclear ambitions.

Such a document of "agreed principles" would indicate a new level of dialogue between the two countries -- and came amid renewed promises for progress in the negotiations, which on Friday will become the longest round of nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea in more than a decade.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and others have stressed that they do not expect any breakthroughs. "We have a long way to go still," he said. "There's certainly some points of agreement, but there continues to be points of disagreement."

Thursday's bilateral meeting -- held as part of six-nation talks - - was "maybe the first time both sides talked so deeply, so concretely and for such a long time," said Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev, the chief Russian delegate.

But the United States ruled out negotiating a bilateral agreement with North Korea even though envoys from both nations have met separately three times.

"That approach was tried and it failed," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday in Washington, referring to a 1994 agreement that collapsed when Pyongyang revived activity at a nuclear plant.

At the Beijing multilateral forum, Hill said he hoped to start drafting a statement "in the next 24 hours" with results of the talks so far -- a possible indication that negotiations were inching forward.

"We've had a lot of discussions with a lot of the delegations, so we'd like to see if we can put some of these thoughts down on paper and see where we are," Hill said after his two-hour session with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan. American officials have said the document would contain "agreed principles" for future negotiations.

No deadline has been set for the end of this round of six-party talks in the Chinese capital, unlike the previous three rounds that lasted three days -- Aug. 27-29, 2003; Feb. 25-28, 2004, and June 23- 26, 2004.

Delegates from the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Japan and China reconvened Tuesday for a fourth round of six- nation talks after a 13-month hiatus during which the North refused to attend negotiations, citing "hostile" U.S. policies.

Most of the negotiations between the United States and North Korea have lasted for three days or less.

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