By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) - The U.S. delegate to talks aimed at the nuclear disarmament of North Korea said problems lay ahead as negotiators gathered on Wednesday to discuss rules about verification of the reclusive state's nuclear activities.
North Korea, which tested a nuclear bomb in 2006, partly disabled its Yongbyon nuclear complex this year in a disarmament-for-aid deal, but the so-called six-party talks have failed to agree on a protocol to check the North's declaration of its nuclear activities.
Chief U.S. delegate Christopher Hill said all sides -- North and South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia -- had to see what the reaction was to a draft text offered by China on Tuesday that outlined a way to verify nuclear information.
"I think the key thing is to figure out whether this is a draft that everyone can work on or not," Hill told reporters.
Asked if a consensus had been reached on taking nuclear samples from North Korea, or verifying that Pyongyang was abiding by its agreements, he said: "I'm not aware that there's anything that could be defined as no longer a problem."
Japan's top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura, was similarly downbeat.
"We cannot have preconceptions about what will happen at the six-party talks currently being held in Beijing," he told reporters in Tokyo.
Any progress at the negotiations in Beijing, which have stretched over the years with very little to show, would be a diplomatic trophy for outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush, weeks before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.
In an illustration of how arcane the talks process is, two South Korean newspapers, in unsourced reports, said the talks had reached a compromise over sampling.
The most contention has centred on the North's reluctance to allow international inspectors to take nuclear samples out of the country for testing.
The Dong-a Ilbo, a conservative daily, said "the draft is known to not have the word 'sampling' but instead uses the phrase 'international standards that include scientific procedures'."
The mainstream JoongAng Ilbo cited an unnamed source as saying members have reached a compromise on the sampling issue "to a considerable degree."
The negotiations were to last three days from Monday and Hill on Tuesday joked that reporters should not check out of hotel rooms yet. Analysts believe North Korea will be in no hurry to make concessions, waiting to test Obama's intentions.
Complicating the issue are sour relations between North and South Korea and a feud between Pyongyang and Tokyo over the kidnapping of Japanese nationals decades ago. The North has said it will not recognise Japan's role in the talks.
There is also mystery over the Communist state's leader, Kim Jong-il. U.S. and South Korean officials have said Kim suffered a stroke in August, raising questions about who was making decisions over North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.
(Additional reporting by Yoko Nishikawa in TOKYO and Kim Junghyn in SEOUL; Editing by Nick Macfie)
