More talk, little progress with NK
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- South Korea has agreed to hold another day of negotiations with the North after failing to convince Pyongyang to rejoin stalled six-country talks on its nuclear ambitions.
Negotiators from the North and South began the talks Monday in the North Korean border town of Kaesong -- the first time in nearly a year the two sides have met.
They were to have ended Tuesday afternoon, but both sides met briefly Wednesday morning before announcing that formal meetings would resume Thursday.
Officials said the key sticking points include the failure to reach a compromise on language about the need for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
"We have made it clear that we cannot accept North Korea's nuclear weapons," South Korean Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-Jo said.
Both sides also could not reach agreement on the next round of ministerial-level talks.
South Korean delegation members have proposed another meeting at the ministerial level in June.
The South has been trying to bring North Korea back to six-party talks with the United States, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan.
Minister Rhee has said a "significant proposal" was offered to the North to rejoin the talks.
During the meetings, officials from the North Korean delegation asked the South for food and fertilizer aid.
The talks come at a time of renewed urgency, with U.S. officials expressing concern over the possibility Pyongyang may be preparing to test a nuclear bomb.
U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley on Sunday warned North Korea that conducting a nuclear test would be a serious act of "defiance."
"Action would have to be taken," Hadley told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."
Pyongyang opted out of the six-party talks in September 2004, citing a "hostile" U.S. policy towards it.
In February, Pyongyang declared it had nuclear weapons and would continue its boycott of talks indefinitely unless Washington agreed to one-on-one talks.
The Bush administration has refused, arguing that the issue affects the entire region and therefore the other parties should be included.
Last week, Pyongyang released a statement identical to one it made two years ago, declaring that it had finished extracting 8,000 fuel rods from its reactor at Yongbyon, which it shut down a month ago, according to a report distributed by the Korean Central News Agency, the North's official news organ.
That step would allow the North Koreans to reprocess the spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium -- after the rods are cooled, a process that could take two to three months -- but the KCNA report did not indicate whether they were preparing to do so.
The statement said North Korea was "taking necessary measures to bolster its nuclear arsenal for the defensive purpose of coping with the prevailing situation, with a main emphasis on developing the self-reliant nuclear power industry."
The North Koreans have previously claimed to have extracted the rods and reprocessed the fuel into plutonium, accounting for the five to six nuclear weapons the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency believe the country already has.
Pyongyang withdrew from its nuclear agreements in 2002 and restarted Yongbyon, which it had shut down in 1994. It kicked out U.N. inspectors and monitors as well.
CNN Seoul Bureau Chief Sohn Jie-Ae contributed to this report
