N Korea talks wrap up early

Three-way talks with North Korea over its nuclear programme are ending a day earlier than anticipated, having heard "strong views", the US has said.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the sides would return home and assess what action to take.

But he warned North Korea against going away with "the slightest impression that the United States and its partners and the nations in the region will be intimidated by bellicose statements or by threats or actions".

He added that two-way talks might take place on Friday between China and the US, and China and North Korea.

Envoys from Washington and Pyongyang had been meeting face-to-face this week - a new shift in the six-month impasse. However observers had warned that the talks were unlikely to result in a dramatic breakthrough.

"The North Koreans presented their point of view strongly, the Chinese did as well, as did the United States," Mr Powell told a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Council in Washington.

During the talks in China, which began on Wednesday, negotiators on both sides refused to comment on progress.

The last time the US and North Korea negotiated a nuclear deal, in 1994, the talks lasted 19 months.

NUCLEAR STAND-OFF

Oct 2002 - US says N Korea "admits" secret nuclear programme

Nov 2002 - US-led decision to halt oil shipments to N Korea

Dec 2002 - N Korea expels two nuclear watchdog's inspectors

Jan 2003 - N Korea says it is withdrawing from Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Feb 2003 - N Korea "restarts" Yongbyon nuclear plant

Apr 2003 - N Korea ends insistence on direct talks with US

Who wants what

Crisis timeline

Analysts had stressed that the talks were aimed principally at breaking the silence between the two sides.

The delegations were led by the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian affairs, James Kelly, and the deputy director general of North Korea's American Affairs Bureau, Li Gun.

The US wants to persuade North Korea to close down its nuclear programmes, while the North wants assurances the US will not attack.

But tensions ahead of the talks remained high. North Korean fighter jets have begun long-distance training, South's Defence Ministry said on Wednesday.

They were monitoring US and Russian surveillance planes, the South Koreans said.

South Korea and Japan both hope to join the discussions at a later stage.

Their absence at the initial meeting was seen as a concession to the North, which demanded one-to-one talks with Washington. But the US is keen to include the North's neighbours in discussions.

US envoy

The last time James Kelly held talks with a North Korean delegation, he accused them of pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programme, sparking the crisis in October.

Mr Kelly's October comments were an early sign of crisis

President Bush later suspended oil aid shipments under a 1994 agreement designed to prevent Pyongyang from developing nuclear weapons.

In December, North Korea restarted its nuclear facilities, expelled United Nations inspectors and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Last week North Korea announced that it was already reprocessing its spent fuel rods - the step necessary to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

That statement was amended on Monday to read that the North was "successfully going forward to reprocess" the 8,000 rods.

This new statement appears to fit with Western and Asian intelligence assessments that the reprocessing plant at the Yongbyon nuclear plant is not yet operational.