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No agreement at N Korea nuke talks
(CNN) -- North Korea has put forward a "package of solutions" at the conclusion of six-party talks in Beijing aimed at curbing its nuclear ambitions, but warned that future negotiations may be in jeopardy because of what it regards as U.S. intransigence. As the talks wound up without agreement, China's Xinhua news agency quoted Pyongyang's official media outlet, KCNA as saying North Korea would not build nuclear weapons if the United States would agree to a non-aggression treaty -- a stance largely unchanged from its position before the talks. "The package of solutions includes the U.S. signing of a non-aggression treaty with the DPRK (North Korea), the establishment of diplomatic relations with the DPRK, the guarantee of DPRK-Japan and inter-Korean economic cooperation, the completion of light-water reactors," Xinhua said in a dispatch from Pyongyang. "In return, the DPRK will not manufacture nuclear weapons and allow in inspection, realise the ultimate dismantlement of nuclear facilities and stop the export and experiment of missiles," it said. Although the Beijing talks have now ended but officials attending the meetings have indicated a further round of negotiations in October was discussed -- an outcome that most observers had seen as best result expected from the talks. However, the KCNA reports indicated those talks could be threatened danger because, "the United States refuses to express intentions to switch over its hostile policy against North Korea." Earlier, ahead of the final session of talks in Beijing, officials in Washington told CNN that North Korea was preparing to publicly declare itself a nuclear power and had threatened to prove its capabilities by conducting a nuclear test. However, the White House tried to play down the North's warnings saying it was getting "excellent" cooperation from its partners in the talks and that North Korea has a "history of making inflammatory comments that serve to isolate it from the world." The question from the U.S. administration standpoint, the official said, is "whether this is a serious and irreversible statement or part of their past pattern of starting every conversation by being threatening to see if it wins them something." In July, a Japanese newspaper quoted Japanese and North Korean sources as saying Pyongyang was prepared to conduct a nuclear test unless the United States responded positively to its proposals for resolving the nuclear crisis. (Full story) "Reports back to us from the delegation are that they (North Korea) said they were preparing to declare themselves a nuclear nation and contemplating testing," the administration official told CNN Thursday. The official said the North Koreans also told participants at the meeting that they had the means to deliver nuclear weapons. "My understanding is that it was done in what our people called a somewhat agitated way -- in the context of their view that we are hostile toward them and this is how they plan to respond," the official said. In a separate development envoys from Japan and North Korea met on the sidelines of Thursday's talks, Japan's top government spokesman Yasuo Fukuda told reporters in Tokyo. Fukuda said Japan called for a resolution of the nuclear standoff between North Korea and the United States and urged Pyongyang to return the families of Japanese abducted by the North decades ago. "On the nuclear problem, Japan laid out its position. On abductees, Japan asked strongly that the families of the five abductees be quickly brought to Japan," Fukuda said. -- CNN White House Correspondent John King in Crawford, Texas; Senior Executive Producer Richard Griffiths in Beijing; State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel; and Producer Elise Labott in Washington contributed to this report.
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