Chances appeared slim on Tuesday of a breakthrough to the North Korean nuclear crisis as envoys to six-party negotiations gathered in Beijing on Tuesday ahead of talks aimed at breaking the impasse.
Neither Pyongyang nor Washington, the two protagonists in the stand-off over North Korea's nuclear programmes, showed any sign of preparing to budge from their deeply entrenched stands during the inaugural talks to pave the way for higher-level meetings.
Some analysts said the Bush administration had no intention of making compromises before presidential elections in November and communist North Korea, sensing that, would stick to its guns.
US special envoy Joseph DeTrani consulted with his counterparts from South Korea, Japan, China and Russia before the closed-door talks, which open on Wednesday and are expected to last several days, an embassy spokeswoman said.
Beijing gave a conservative forecast, stressing the sides still differed over what the first step toward the abandonment of the North's nuclear programmes should be.
"So we hope all circles, including the media, can maintain reasonable expectations for the working group meeting," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.
The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when US officials said communist North Korea had disclosed it was working on a secret programme to enrich uranium for weapons in violation of an international agreement.
Pyongyang, which denied the disclosure, pulled out of the nuclear non-proliferation Treaty, expelled UN inspectors and took a plutonium plant out of mothballs.
Ri Gun, deputy head of US affairs at the North Korean Foreign Ministry, arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, an embassy official said.
North Korea wants compensation to give up its nuclear ambitions, with a deal for a freeze as a first step, while the United States wants Pyongyang to agree to complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement.
"The US objective remains the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear programmes. We will pursue that objective at this working-group meeting," the US spokeswoman said.
"We have stated many times that the US will not provide rewards or inducements to North Korea for compliance with international obligations and commitments."
North Korea, keeping up a trademark show of brinkmanship ahead of the talks, pressed its "reward for freeze" proposal.
"The DPRK is of the view that there would be no need for it to sit with the US at the negotiating table if the US seeks to force the DPRK, not a defeated country, to accept its absurd demand, talking about irreversible and the like," the main government newspaper, Minju Joson, said in a commentary.