It's extraordinarily difficult to get a no spin report on this matter. Nevertheless at this juncture, It's hard to call this a Bush success.
N. Korea talks stuck in deadlock yet again
Talks on the crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons program were scheduled to end today although diplomats reported little progress Friday toward resolving differences among the six nations at the table, especially the United States and North Korea.
The deadlock appeared to doom the second round of the talks in Beijing to the same inconclusive fate as the first round held six months ago.
U.S. officials said the nations appeared likely to release a statement that would announce the goal of holding another senior-level meeting by the end of June. The statement, which would call for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, would also say there was an agreement in principle to set up working groups to continue discussions in the interim, though the groups' mandate would be left vague and subject to negotiation.
The planned statement appeared designed to disguise the fact that the parties could not agree even on joint negotiating goals, let alone close the gap on how to resolve the impasse.
China, the host of the talks, has pushed the hardest for some sort of written statement, diplomats said. An earlier round of talks in August, also hosted by China, ended without a statement, and the Chinese government tried for months before this round to get the six countries to agree in advance on a declaration.
``Right now, the parties are in the process of carrying out intensive consultations on a document, so the hope still exists,'' said Liu Jianchao of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. But he added, ``If there is not a document, we should not say the talks were a failure.''
mercurynews.com
lurqer |
