N. Korea Nuclear Talks End Without a Deal

Even before the talks started Wednesday, China warned that the dispute couldn't be solved in a single round of meetings.

"Some people think that not enough progress was made," Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said, thanking delegates at a closing ceremony. "But the speed of these negotiations is not very fast. ... The will of the participants is the most important thing, and the will of these participants is to seek peace."

He added: "We must use a constructive attitude to narrow differences and expand common ground through dialogue, to resolve the issue."

There are still "some various serious differences," Li said. He said the disagreements "cannot be fundamentally resolved through one or two rounds of talks."

The closing ceremony was delayed more than three hours after North Korea requested changes in a joint statement to refer to "differences" among the governments, according to diplomats.

At the start of the ceremony, diplomats from five nations - South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan - sat for several minutes live on Chinese television, waiting and appearing nervous before the North Korean delegation strode in. Its chief delegate, Kim Kye Gwan, was smiling broadly.

The statement was later issued by China under the title "chairman's statement," which was read by Wang at a news conference.

North Korea and the United States have been at odds over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions for years and especially since October 2002, when U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said the North told him it had a secret program based on enriched uranium - thus, Washington said, violating a 1994 agreement.

Kelly led the U.S. delegation to the Beijing talks this week.

North Korea publicly denies having a uranium program in addition to its known plutonium-based program, but it brandishes the threat of what it describes as its "nuclear deterrent" in an effort to extract concessions.

U.S. officials believe North Korea already has one or two nuclear bombs and could make several more within months. The North's five negotiating partners all say they want the Korean Peninsula to be nuclear-free.

South Korea, China and Russia offered the North crucial energy aid if it agreed to disarm.