Negotiators from six countries tried again on Thursday to break a deadlock in talks designed to end North Korea's nuclear arms programme, but there was no sign of an early end to a nearly three-year-old crisis, Reuters reported. The negotiations in Beijing between the United States, North and South Korea, Japan, Russia and host China entered the third day with an impasse over Pyongyang's insistence on its right to a civilian nuclear energy programme. Officials from the United States and North Korea, the two main protagonists in the drama, met for about 90 minutes, but no progress was reported. "We understand they were not able to narrow differences," a South Korean official told Reuters. Failure to reach an accord in Beijing could prompt the United States to take the issue to the U.N. Security Council and press for sanctions. China opposes such a move, and communist North Korea has said sanctions would be tantamount to war. "The DPRK has been engaged in nuclear energy for some 25 years. They have not succeeded in turning it into electricity. They have succeeded in turning it into plutonium," chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said, referring to Pyongyang's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. --More 1115 Local Time 0815 GMT
