Christopher Hill, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and top U.S. negotiator for the six-party talks, listens to a question from a journalist after talks in Beijing September 15, 2005. (Reuters)

The United States and North Korea clashed over a Pyongyang demand for light-water nuclear reactors for power generation at six-nation talks designed to end the country's atomic arms programs, Reuters reported.

On the eve of a fourth day of talks on Friday, Washington said the North's stand was holding up an end to a three-year crisis that would allow aid and security guarantees for the impoverished state if it abandoned all nuclear programs.

"We are at a bit of a stand-off at this point. We have to see how this plays out," chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters in Beijing where North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China are meeting.

"I want to stress that we all want to resolve this through a diplomatic way. (North Korea), not for the first time, has chosen to isolate itself," said Hill.

The North stood firm on its demand for light-water reactors, which generate electricity but are unsuitable for making nuclear arms. Its stance represented a hardening of position.

"The issue of a light-water reactor is one that's related to the political commitment by the United States to clear its hostility against us and to peacefully co-exist," a spokesman for the North Korean delegation told reporters.

"We are demanding something specific, not an empty right to peaceful nuclear activities. All the countries have expressed understanding of our position, but only the United States is adamantly against it."

Failure to reach an accord at the Beijing talks could prompt Washington to take the issue to the U.N. Security Council and press for sanctions. China opposes such a move, and North Korea has said sanctions would be tantamount to war.

The United States, which once branded North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, says Pyongyang must end all nuclear programs verifiably and irreversibly.

It says the North can then expect aid and security guarantees, but Pyongyang wants the aid and guarantees first.

Washington has urged North Korea to focus on a draft joint statement that sets out the principle of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and contains a South Korean offer to supply the North with electricity roughly equivalent to Pyongyang's total output.

"We have a pretty good deal on the table," said Hill.

The latest talks resumed on Tuesday, five weeks after a marathon 13-day session at which the six countries failed to reach agreement even on a statement of basic principles. Negotiations first began in 2003.

The stand-off began in October 2002 when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted to a secret program to enrich uranium, used to make nuclear weapons, in violation of a 1994 agreement.

North Korea denied the charge at the time, and responded by throwing out U.N. weapons inspectors at the end of 2002 and withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in January 2003.

Last February, the North said it had nuclear bombs.

(China Daily)

light-water nuclear reactor: （輕水核反應堆）

power generation: （發電）

stand-off: （僵局）

be tantamount to: （相當于）

axis of evil: （邪惡軸心）

equivalent (to): （相當于）

on the table: （擺在桌面上，公開地）

enrich: increase the amount of one or more radioactive isotopes in (a material, especially a nuclear fuel（濃縮），enriched uranium指濃縮鈾