The heads of the six delegations held two joint meetings yesterday as they continued to thrash out the draft of a proposed joint document on the Korean nuclear issue. 

The painstaking efforts, however, made little concrete progress, as the talks entered a record eighth day and negotiators vowed to continue talks today.

Working from a proposed draft put forward by China, delegates from the US, Russia, Japan, North and South Korea have all been engaged in intense negotiations on the joint document since last Saturday.

Visiting US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick described the talks as a "difficult process" yesterday, saying the five parties are in fairly close agreement on key principles and the key question is whether Pyongyang is willing to make the strategic decisions needed for the process to move forward.

Speaking at the gate of his country's embassy in Beijing yesterday, Pyongyang's chief delegate Kim Kye-gwan told Associated Press that differences in opinion remained between North Korea and the US but said the North was looking to narrow the differences as much as possible.

Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said yesterday the nuclear disarmament talks may last all week as delegates move on from discussing the draft joint document to the wording of the official document itself, reported Kyodo News.

(China Daily August 3, 2005)