Top US and North Korean nuclear negotiators met Tuesday to try to resolve a snag stalling the six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, but with no signs of a breakthrough, Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported from Beijing.Christopher Hill, chief of the US delegation to the six-way talks, met with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan in the Chinese capital at a time when the nuclear negotiations remain stalled over Pyongyang's obligation to submit a list of its nuclear programs, the news agency said. The six-party talks chaired by China involve North and South Korea, the US, Japan and Russia.
"We discussed ideas that China has had, and how things could be moved," Hill said at Beijing's international airport, shortly before departing for Seoul, his next stop in a tour of the region. "It was a good, substantial discussion," the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs said of his talks with Kim, according to the report.
The nuclear negotiations have hit a snag over whether North Korea should declare all its nuclear programs first or whether compensation measures, including the country's delisting from a US terrorism blacklist, should be completed before the list's submission. "I think they understand our point of view," Hill said of the North Koreans. "But we won't have a complete and correct declaration until we have a complete and correct declaration, so I'm not sure yet if we have an understanding on that," he said..