Backed by the world in its drive to curb the spread of nuclear arms, the United States is facing growing resistance to its bid to deny some states the right to peaceful atomic energy. The question has become central in recent days to Washington's efforts to keep North Korea and Iran, two members of President George W. Bush's "axis of evil," from becoming nuclear weapons powers.
Nearly two weeks of multi-party talks with Pyongyang foundered on Sunday, largely over North Korea's demand to keep up a civilian nuclear capacity if it halts its bomb-making programme.
While Washington rejected the idea, China and Russia have appeared more receptive and staunch US ally South Korea flatly endorsed North Korea's access to civilian nuclear power as a "natural right."
The Americans also ran into opposition within the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board when they tried this week to refer Tehran to the United Nations for resuming sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle work.
US officials acknowledge that while most countries agree with keeping nuclear arms out of the hands of Iran and North Korea, barring any country from access to peaceful nuclear power is more difficult to swallow.
They say that many developing states are concerned such tactics could set a precedent that would compromise their own capacity to tap into nuclear energy somewhere down the road.
"Not everybody is on the same page with regard to the right of civilian nuclear power and that's an issue that we're going to have to work through," a senior State Department official said this week.
"People can opine about theoretical rights, but what we're focused on is dealing with the problem at hand and finding a way to manage it so that it's not a threat," said the official, who asked not to be named.
The Americans accuse both Iran and North Korea of using civilian nuclear programs as a guise to develop weapons-grade fuel. But their approach to the two countries has differed markedly.
The United States has shown some flexibility towards Iran, which had been offered a package of incentives by Britain, France and Germany to renounce its suspected nuclear arms ambitions.
Washington signed off on a European proposal last Friday that would allow Iran to keep its civilian nuclear capacity if it gave up work on converting and enriching uranium that could be used in bombs.
The US administration has all but accepted construction of a Russian-built nuclear plant at Bushehr on the south-western Iranian coast on condition that any spent fuel is taken out of the country.
But Christopher Hill, chief US negotiator at the six-party talks on North Korea, has taken a much harder line with Pyongyang, whose nuclear fuel activities are much more advanced than Iran's.
"It's our view that they do need to dismantle all their programs," the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs told reporters Wednesday in Washington.
Hill insisted the North Koreans could not be trusted after reneging on past agreements and clandestinely using what was called a research reactor to turn out plutonium for manufacturing bombs.
"This is a country that had trouble keeping peaceful energy "peaceful," Hill said. "So there's a track record there that needs to be dealt with."
But critics see several flaws in the US strategy of seeking to cut off North Korea from access to any nuclear power.
The right to peaceful nuclear technology is enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that for 35 years has governed efforts to contain the spread of atomic weapons.
Washington has also been accused of double standards in its non-proliferation campaign since US allies Israel and Pakistan, which have or are suspected to have nuclear arms, are not NPT signatories.
India, another nuclear power that has stayed out of the NPT, just concluded a major agreement with the United States to expand nuclear co-operation.
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