Six-party talks may end in impasse

BEIJING, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- The six-nation negotiators on North Korea's denuclearization met in Beijing again Thursday amid threat of an impasse over the issue of verification.

With no agreement in sight, negotiators from host China, the United States, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas met again mostly for bilateral talks with no breakthrough in sight, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The talks, which resumed after a gap of several months, have once again stalled, this time over a draft of a protocol on verification of North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

One of the unresolved issues is whether North Korea will let international inspectors take samples from soil and waste at its nuclear sites and analyze them outside the country.

Yonhap said the United States maintains sampling is needed to determine the accuracy of the nuclear data supplied in June by the North in June and wants that assurance in writing.

"I can't say there is any breakthrough," Chief U.S. Negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters Wednesday.

Whether the talks will continue remained unclear with Yuri Kim, a U.S. State Department official at the talks, telling Yonhap, "Nobody knows."

China's Xinhua news agency quoted a senior official in Washington as saying the United States has not ruled out placing North Korea back on its terrorism sponsors.

The United States removed North Korea from that list in October to enable the six-party talks to continue.