Wednesday, July 27 2005 20:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Beijing: The second day of six-party talks on North Korean nuclear programme made no apparent headway today with Pyongyang saying a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula will not be achieved unless US makes a firm commitment not to use military force to topple the reclusive Stalinist regime.

North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister and chief delegate Kim Kye Gwan said his country "pledges to liquidate its nuclear weapons and nuclear programme verifiably" if US normalises its ties, builds trust and removes the nuclear threat, reports said.

He also rejected as "unreasonable" a US proposal presented in June 2004 during the third round of six-party talks, saying it was unreasonable and lacked specifics about peaceful co-existence between the Cold War-era rivals.

The US proposal had called for establishing a three-month preparatory period for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programmes after promising to abandon them.

The US chief negotiator Christopher Hill offered to normalise ties with North Korea if the latter made a "strategic decision" to verifiably dismantle its nuclear programme and renounce nuclear ambitions, saying Pyongyang should learn from Libya, South Africa and Ukraine which had give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons development.

But North Korea responded by saying that a nuclear- free Korean Peninsula won't be achieved unless the US makes a firm, concrete commitment not to use military force as it tries to topple the reclusive Stalinist regime.

Even as North Korea and US tested the resolve of other four parties; China, Japan, Russia and South Korea delegates from these countries held bilateral talks on how to achieve their common goal of a denuclearised Korean Peninsula, sources said.