The top US negotiator to stalled talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis said on Tuesday it was time for the parties to take a breather and mull what progress had been made in more than a week of wrangling.
Christopher Hill spoke to reporters in Beijing just hours after the top North Korean delegate spurned US terms for dismantling his country's nuclear weapons programmes.
Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, in his first public comments since the six-party talks resumed on June 26, told reporters he was ready to stay at the table and seek a result. But he insisted that he would continue to demand removal of what he called the US nuclear threat to his country.
Hill said on Tuesday night: "The United States is not threatening anybody."
The face-off between the two main protagonists has meant that the six parties - also including South Korea, Russia, Japan and host nation China - have failed to agree on a joint statement, however bland, that everyone can sign and go home.
"I think the issue is how one winds this up," Hill told reporters. "That is, does it wind up with an agreement, does it wind up with parties saying well, look, we have to do some more substantial consultations in capitals, or does it wind up in a flat-out disagreement."
"One would certainly like to see the progress that's been achieved locked in, and if you can't see an agreement, there are people looking at whether you can lock it in by having a recess while people check more thoroughly in capitals," he said.
Washington says Pyongyang must dismantle its nuclear weapons programmes before it can hope for US aid and security guarantees. Some intelligence analysts estimate it has material for up to nine nuclear bombs.
North Korea insists that it receive concessions before even considering scrapping its nuclear programmes.
"There have been long discussions for many days between the DPRK and the United States," Vice Minister Kim told reporters, using his state's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"Of course, differences in views remain, but we want to narrow them and produce a result."
Kim said: "As you know our decision is to give up nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons-related programmes when the US nuclear threat against us is removed and trust is established."
Washington, which still has more than 30,000 troops in South Korea, denies there are any nuclear weapons there. Reports said North Korea felt US military installations in Japan dealt such a threat.
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted an informed North Korean source as saying the talks were likely to end on Wednesday.
"Our estimate is that the round should end on Wednesday," the source said. "We believe that if we fail to sign a final document, that would mean that the fourth round ... failed."
China, the talks host and Pyongyang's closest ally, attempted to mediate in the dispute, saying the North could be entitled to have reactors for civilian use if it rejoined the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
North Korea expelled UN inspectors and quit the treaty after the United States accused it in October 2002 of having a clandestine uranium-based nuclear weapons programme in addition to its mothballed plutonium-based reactor at Yongbyon.
The stakes rose in February, when Pyongyang announced it now had nuclear weapons and demanded aid, assurances and diplomatic recognition from Washington in return for scrapping them.
Visiting US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick told reporters five of the six parties were on the same page in terms of the "core guiding principles" they are trying to draft.
"The key question is whether North Korea is willing to make the strategic decision it needs to make to go forward," he said.
Given historic rivalries among the six parties, any joint statement would mark a breakthrough at talks where past progress was measured by whether delegates could even agree to reconvene.
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