Acting State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the parties were "narrowing the differences" in efforts to hammer out a statement of principles on keeping the Korean peninsula nuclear free.

Casey said the Chinese, who are hosting the discussions that started last week, produced a third draft of the statement and then a fourth that would be taken up Wednesday at a meeting of the delegation heads.

Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea's top envoy to the talks, told reporters in Beijing the negotiations had produced no progress with "some differences and confrontations over several issues" reamining.

But Casey insisted the atmosphere remained "business-like. ... This is a very deliberate and methodical process. And we're working through it, we're continuing to see what kind of progress can be made."

A State Department official, who asked not to be named, rejected suggestions the negotiations on the statement of principles had stalled.

"If we move from draft two to draft three to draft four, I'd characterize that as progress, not as stalled," he said. "How much progress? Will it eventually, ultimately result in an agreement? Who knows?"

The official said the parties had gotten down to a line-by-line evaluation of the draft statement before the Chinese produced the fourth version after a lunch break.

"At that point, the Chinese said, 'OK, we've made sufficient progress that it's probably time for everyone to send these back to capitals'" for review, the official said.

But he cautioned that the efforts to wean North Korea off its nuclear arsenal had a long way to go.

"What I don't want to do is give anybody the sense that we're at some kind of endgame here. I just don't think that's the case."

Chief US negotiator Christopher Hill earlier told reporters in Beijing that the next step in the negotiations bringing together North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia was unclear.

"Whether we'll have a draft everybody agrees on or whether it is decided that there should be a recess sometime, we don't know yet," Hill said at the end of the eighth day of talks.

"The Chinese side is really trying to bring this negotiation to a conclusion of some kind in the next few days," he said.

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