The Stalinist state is the only one among the countries at the talks -- China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States -- that has not signed off on a draft of a statement on it dumping its atomic arsenal and what it would get in return.

It had been expected to deliver its verdict on Wednesday but snubbed a meeting of the chief envoys to the talks, the fourth round of which began Tuesday last week.

"I think everybody knows the score right now. We are waiting for the North Koreans to give an answer to the Chinese on the draft," the US chief delegate, Christopher Hill, told reporters.

"They have got to make real decisions. We need to have a situation where we know precisely what they have agreed to do, what they have agreed to abandon.

"We cannot have a situation where the DRPK pretends to abandon its nuclear programs and we pretend to believe them," he said referring to the North by its official name Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea.

China, the North's closest ally, has been driving the negotiations and was working to salvage something from the discussions, holding talks with all the delegations late into the night Wednesday.

Hill was due to meet the Chinese negotiators later Thursday but he said he had no plans to talk again with the North Koreans, who were seen entering the talks venue in a convoy early Thursday.

"There is no reason to meet them now. They are talking to the Chinese," said Hill, the assistant secretary of state for Asian and Pacific affairs, who has held eight one-on-one meetings with North Korea's envoy Kim Kye-gwan.

"They know exactly what the situation is. We responded, the Russians responded, the South Koreans responded and the Japanese responded. So let's see what the North Koreans have to say."

South Korea's chief delegate Song Min-Soon has said the framework agreement centered around North Korea dismantling its nuclear weapons in return for a normalization of ties with the United States and Japan.

Japanese and South Korean media reports said it included the provision of a security guarantee and electricity and fuel oil aid to the impoverished North.

But it does not include a key North Korean demand that concessions be delivered simultaneously with the dismantling of its atomic weapons program, they said, citing sources.

The United States has persistently demanded that the North give up its weapons programs before it gets aid and energy.

"As Mr Hill said, China is expected to continue making coordinating efforts and we are going to have talks with China," said Japan's chief delegate Kenichiro Sasae.

"The matter largely depends on whether or not North Korea is prepared to make an important decision."

A key sticking point is believed to be North Korea's unwillingness to acknowledge having a uranium enrichment program. The United States accused the North in 2002 of running such a program.

The communist regime raised the stakes in February when it said it already had nuclear bombs.

The fourth round of talks, which come after a break of more than a year, have been the longest since the process was initiated in 2003. All previous rounds ended inconclusively.

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