Pat Dollard | Young Americans

(Kyodo News Agency ) - Top U.S. and North Korean nuclear negotiators are meeting in Singapore on Tuesday to try to solve a three-month-old snag holding up the six- party process aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

The focus of the one-day meeting between Christopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan is the delayed declaration of Pyongyang’s nuclear programs.

“I think we’re looking to have a consultation on some of the issues that have kept us apart for several months, and certainly, I will be discussing the fact that we’re kind of running out of time,” Hill told reporters at a Singapore hotel in the morning.

The six countries reached a breakthrough agreement last year under which North Korea promised to disable its key nuclear facilities and declare all its nuclear programs in exchange for energy assistance.

The United States has also said it would take North Korea off its blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism as the denuclearization process moves forward.

But the multilateral talks stalled after North Korea failed to give an acceptable account of its nuclear programs by the end-of-2007 deadline set under a six-party deal.

The two main sticking points are U.S. concerns about North Korea’s alleged program to enrich weapons-grade uranium and suspicions it shared nuclear technology with Syria, both of which North Korea has vehemently denied.

To break the logjam, a plan is under consideration to address the contentious issues in an attachment or footnote to the main declaration, people knowledgeable about the situation have said.

Asked separately Monday to comment on optimism that seems to be surrounding the outlook for the bilateral talks, Kim said at Singapore’s international airport, “I do not necessarily see it that way.”

“That is because we do not yet completely understand the U.S. position,” he said.

Hill said North Korea should very well know the U.S. position after their series of discussions over the past months.

“They know precisely what the issues are, and they understand that we didn’t want to meet unless we could achieve something,” he said.

Hill and Kim last met in Geneva in March but failed to reach a solution to the declaration impasse.

Hill is to travel to Beijing after the bilateral meeting in Singapore to brief China, the host of the six-party talks.

His counterparts from Japan and South Korea are also expected to travel to the Chinese capital for briefings from Hill about the U.S.- North Korea meeting.

The U.S. negotiator said he will brief Russia, also one of the six parties, in a meeting with the Russian ambassador to Beijing.