Beijing: International negotiators returned to the table today (Dec 18, 2006), more than a year since six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear programme were suspended due to US financial sanctions, and two months after the communist regime exploded its first nuclear device.

The six-nation nuclear talks that opened Monday in Beijing have made little progress since they first began in August 2003.

Participants - the US, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea - hope to convince North Korea to abide by a September 2005 agreement where the North promised to abandon its nuclear programme in exchange for security guarantees and aid.

North Korea accused the US of a 'hostile policy' after the blacklisting of a Macau bank where the North held accounts linked to alleged money-laundering by Pyongyang.

 
The UN imposed financial and arms sanctions against North Korea after the July test of a missile and the October test of a nuclear device, which has eventually led to the agreement to resume the nuclear talks.

"I hope that (North Korea) understands that, as the rest of us do, that we really are reaching a fork in the road," said US envoy Christopher Hill after arriving in Beijing on Sunday.

"We can either go forward on a diplomatic track or you have to go to a much more difficult track and that is a track that involves sanctions and I think ultimately will really be very harmful to the (North's) economy," he added.