<B>IN A</B> signal of the low hopes of a breakthrough from the second round of negotiations to find a way to end North Korea?s atomic arms ambitions, one diplomat said merely that yesterday?s session had ended without any serious setback.

North Korea says it is developing a plutonium programme at a nuclear power plant that would be able to turn out weapons and has offered to freeze that in exchange for security guarantees from the United States and aid.

The United States says the North may already have two nuclear bombs and insists Pyongyang dismantle not only the plutonium development but also a secret uranium-enrichment programme whose existence North Korea denies.

The two protagonists appeared to show little sign of shifting their positions and the stands of most of the others in the talks ? South Korea, Russia, Japan and host China ? were unclear but officials see the meetings as fairly conciliatory so far.

Yesterday, North Korea was asked by chief Japanese negotiator Mitoji Yabunaka to commit to the U.S. formula of a ?complete, verifiable and irreversible? end to its nuclear weapons programmes, officials said.

One key development was a move on Wednesday by China and South Korea to establish regular talks every other month to prevent the collapse of the tentative six-way process.

?There were no major problems,? the diplomat, who attended the talks, told Reuters without elaborating. The talks are due to resume on Friday and could run into additional days even with no major breakthrough likely, officials have said.

A South Korean proposal for a three-stage end to the crisis was on the table. Under that plan the North would pledge its intention to dismantle its nuclear programmes while other countries would meet its security concerns. A second phase would be implementation and a third would address outstanding issues.

The South?s Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck proposed ?corresponding measures? if North Korea agreed to a freeze as a step towards total dismantling, suggesting some sort of economic compensation for the impoverished and isolated communist state.

Some consensus

The most likely opportunity for any breakthrough could emerge from any unusual one-on-one meetings between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly and North Korea?s negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan.

The two men met for more than an hour on Wednesday and China?s official Xinhua news agency reported a second meeting.

?The Democratic People?s Republic of Korea and the United States delegations reportedly had a one-on-one meeting again amidst the ongoing six-party talks Thursday,? it said.

The administration of President George W. Bush, facing an election this year, says it will not reward the country for ending bad behaviour. It was not clear if the United States endorsed the South Korean plan.

An official close to the talks, asked if South Korea had proposed providing North Korea with fuel aid as part of a deal, said: ?I would not put it in those terms.? He did not elaborate.

Still, host China said some consensus had emerged after the first day of discussions, a result of six months of delicate diplomacy after an inconclusive first round last August. The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted to a covert programme to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

The North denied any such admission but has offered to freeze a plutonium-based programme that it reactivated when it pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty last year. Washington sees that as merely returning to its position under an Agreed Framework that froze the programme in 1994 and wants a solution that will make it more difficult for Pyongyang to renege.

However, Kelly on Wednesday offered an assurance to the foe with which the United States is still formally at war since the 1950-53 Korean conflict, saying Washington did not intend to attack the country it has branded part of an ?axis of evil? with Iran and pre-war Iraq.

The State Department?s release on Wednesday of its annual human rights report could be a source of friction.

The report called North Korea ?one of the world?s most inhumane regimes?, and criticised human rights conditions in China and Russia.

Jack Kim

Teruaki Ueno