Rodong Sinmun, mouthpiece of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, urged South Korea to join with the North in opposing what it said was a US scheme to unleash military conflict on the peninsula.

"A touch-and-go tension in the true sense of the word is persisting in Korea due to the US imperialists' reckless moves to start a war against (North Korea) under the pretext of the nuclear issue," it said.

"Unavoidable is the confrontation between the Koreans in the north and the south, who are advancing along the road of peace and peaceful reunification, and the US, which is working to block it."

The commentary might lower already modest expectations of any concrete outcome from meetings in Beijing among delegates from the United States, China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia.

"I don't think that they, particularly the Americans and the North Koreans, will be able to narrow the gap," said Wu Guoguang, an international relations scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The talks began at 9:00 am (0100 GMT) at the Diaoyutai Guest House in the western part of the Chinese capital and were scheduled to break up into small group discussions in the afternoon.

Although little emerged from the closed-door talks, it appeared that the US and North Korean sides remained far apart on fundamental issues.

According to reports in the Japanese media, Kim Jong-Il, North Korea's reclusive dictator, told Chinese leaders during a recent visit to Beijing that he would not give up the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

North Korea has also made clear that even if it were to abandon its attempt to build nuclear bombs -- a program whose existence has not been definitively proven, it would want some kind of reward.

The US government, meanwhile, has insisted that North Korea give up its nuclear program without the promise of any immediate quid pro quo.

"It's in North Korea's best interest to embrace the opportunities provided by the six-party talks," a US embassy official said.

However, South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited reports that the US and Japanese delegates, meeting Tuesday ahead of the working-level talks, supported a South Korean offer of energy aid to North Korea.

That would be in return for freezing the nuclear program as a first step towards its complete dismantling, according to Yonhap.

"South Korea, the United States and Japan have agreed to avoid a confrontational approach and try to find a solution through in-depth negotiations," South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon said in Seoul.

The US delegation, headed by former CIA officer Joseph DeTrani and including representatives from the National Security Council and the Pentagon, met all other teams apart from the North Koreans Tuesday, the US embassy said.

The working-level talks are the first since a second round of high-level six-party meetings ended inconclusively in Beijing in late February.

This week's discussions could help prepare the ground for a third round of high-level six-way negotiations expected to take place in the Chinese capital before the end of June.

Reflecting the low hopes of a speedy outcome, analysts said the mere fact that talks were going on was a mark of progress.

"The six delegations can use the occasion to communicate with each other about what happened in the past several weeks," said Wu. "I don't think they can reach any agreement that they can announce."

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