North Korean chief envoy Kim Kye-Gwan called in his opening remarks to the talks for United Nations and US sanctions to be lifted before it would consider disarming, according to an official from one of the delegations.

The UN sanctions were imposed following North Korea's historic atomic test, while the US financial restrictions were slapped on it late last year for alleged money laundering and counterfeiting.

Kim also repeated long-held demands for international help in building a nuclear reactor for power, as well as oil to help fuel the impoverished nation, according to the official who asked not to be named.

Kim also warned his fellow envoys to the talks that North Korea would continue developing its nuclear program until the international community stopped pressuring it.

"The North Koreans said they would take measures to keep strengthening their nuclear deterrent as long as sanctions and pressure continues to exist," the official said.

The US envoy to the talks, Christopher Hill, said after the day's events that he had told Kim the United States was running out of patience with North Korea's refusal to give up its nuclear weapons.

"There have been lots of damages to the six-party process. There have been too many delays," Hill told reporters. "I made the point... we should be a little less patient, pick up the pace and work a little faster."

Hill said he had warned in Monday's talks that North Korea faced a crucial decision as to whether it would continue with its nuclear program.

"We have come to a very important juncture ... we are at the fork on the road. But I can't tell you which road the DPRK (North Korea) is going," he said.

"For the DPRK, their future is very much at stake. The futures of most of the other countries are not at stake... but for the DPRK it is a very fundamental question."

Japan's envoy to the talks, Kenichiro Sasae, bluntly said afterwards that North Korea's demands on Monday were unacceptable.

The other parties to the talks -- host China, South Korea and Russia -- had all said earlier they were hoping the resumed negotiations would see the North recommit to a disarmament deal brokered in September last year.

That deal saw North Korea agree to give up its nuclear program in return for security guarantees, energy benefits and other aid.

In his opening remarks, Chinese envoy Wu Dawei said the top priority this week was to discuss ways to implement the September deal.

"The issues that we will discuss at the talks are of a profound and complicated nature," Wu said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu gave a cautious assessment of the first day's talks. "To narrow those differences will require assiduous efforts," Jiang said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week the United States was aiming for a denuclearized North Korea by January 2009, when Bush leaves office.

But many analysts who have closely followed the six-nation talks say North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has no intention of surrendering the nuclear program his nation has spent decades developing.

"Now that North Korea has the nuclear bargaining chip, it is never going to give it up," said John Feffer, the global affairs director at the US-based International Relations Center.

related report

US plays down "maximalist" North Korean stance at start of talks
Washington (AFP) Dec 18 - The United States brushed aside North Korea's defiant stance at the opening of six-party nuclear disarmament talks in Beijing on Monday as a "maximalist" negotiating gambit.

But the State Department warned the reclusive communist regime in Pyongyang that the only acceptable outcome of the negotiations, which resumed after a 13-month hiatus, is North Korea's complete denuclearization.

North Korea's chief negotiator, Kim Kye-Gwan, launched Monday's meeting by presenting what one senior US official called a "laundry list" of conditions his government wants met before giving up its nuclear weapons program.

The demands included an end to sanctions imposed by the United Nations after North Korea carried out its first nuclear test explosion in October and a pledge of international help in building a nuclear reactor for electric power.

"The pattern of North Korean negotiation is they start out with a maximalist position and then they start negotiating down from there in hopes that they can achieve as much as they possibly can on their list of demands," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

"I don't think anybody should be surprised by that," he said.

"Would we have hoped that North Korea would have been prepared in this first round to say, 'Well, here's the outlines of a deal?', of course," he said.

"I don't think that anybody really expected that was going to happen, in reality."

"But make no mistake about it: The one thing that is not negotiable is the fact that these talks are intended to result in a denuclearized Korean Peninsula," he said.

The six-party talks involving China, Japan, North and South Korea, Russia and the United States began in 2003 in a bid to convince Pyongyang not to develop nuclear weapons.

In a joint statement agreed to in September 2005, North Korea pledged to renounce its nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic and energy aid and improved political relations with its counterparts.

But the North Koreans withdrew from the process two months later after Washington imposed financial sanctions on a Macau-based bank accused of money-laundering and passing counterfeit US currency for the Pyongyang regime.

The situation erupted into crisis after North Korea carried out its first test explosion on October 9, sparking unprecedented UN sanctions against it.

The regime agreed to return to the six-party talks three weeks later.

McCormack acknowledged that the renewed negotiations are "going to be tough". "I don't think the North Koreans are going to give anything away for free, and I don't think anybody else in the six-party talks is going to do so either," he said.

The United States has set no deadline for progress in the negotiations.

But a senior official said Monday that Washington will want to start seeing signs soon that Pyongyang is ready to make the strategic choice to give up its nuclear ambitions in exchange for badly needed economic help and normalization of its relations with the rest of the world.

"If they are saying the same thing at the end of the week that they are saying right now, then, you'll have to raise questions about how serious they are about getting to a solution," the official said.

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