N Korea nuke talks end without deal

BEIJING—The first talks on North Korea’s nuclear program since the communist nation tested an atomic device ended Friday without an agreement on disarmament or a date for further negotiations.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the U.S. envoy to the talks, said negotiations would resume in “weeks, not months.” During five days of meetings in Beijing, negotiators said Pyongyang refused to talk about its nuclear weapons program, and instead stuck to its demand that the U.S. remove financial restrictions it has imposed on the regime. Hill said it appeared North Korea had not given its negotiators any authority to discuss anything but the financial issue.
“Clearly, negotiators ought to come armed with some instructions to negotiate,” he said Friday evening. Hill insisted the talks would not be left in limbo for another 13 months, and that Washington remained committed to resolving the issue in the six-nation format. “We have to make progress — we should have made that progress this week,” he said. North Korea’s envoy said the communist nation would bolster its atomic arsenal in response to U.S. pressure. “The U.S. is taking a tactic of both dialogue and pressure, and carrots and sticks,” Kim Kye Gwan told reporters. “We are responding with dialogue and a shield, and by a shield we are saying we will further improve our deterrent.”

—Agencies