Six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis ended today with host China describing extreme mistrust, but a senior US official said the meetings had advanced Washington's agenda of disarming Pyongyang.
Wrangling over a proposed joint statement continued even after Chinese Foreign Minister Mr Li Zhaoxing closed the four-day session, saying all sides had agreed to set up a working group and hold the next set of talks in Beijing before the end of June.
"Differences, even serious differences, still exist," Mr Li said at the closing ceremony, without specifying what gaps remained.
China's chief negotiator, Mr Wang Yi, cited an "extreme lack of trust" between the US and North Korean side and said further discussions were needed on the scope of both the North's proposal to freeze its nuclear programmes and the US demand for dismantling all atomic arms schemes.
But a senior US official declared the talks that also involved South Korea, Japan and Russia "very successful", saying all but Pyongyang had agreed to the goal of a nuclear-free North.
"The event has exceeded my expectations in a very important respect. It's been very successful in moving the agenda towards our goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling (CVID) of DPRK nuclear programmes," the US official said.
"CVID is now more on the table than ever."
Russia's chief delegate Mr Alexander Losyukov described the achievements at the talks as "modest", but said the working groups were "a reasonable base for the continuation of discussions of those problems arising from the different positions".
North Korea, whose 11th-hour rejection of language in a proposed agreement prolonged the talks for hours and prevented the parties from signing a joint declaration, was slated to hold a news conference later today.