The difficulty involving reclusive Communist North Korea’s ambitions to develop atomic arms has cast a shadow over north Asia and forced the United States to dig deep into its chest of negotiating tactics to try to find a solution.

Within minutes of the surprise announcement that the six parties to the talks had reached an agreement, questions arose as to how the deal would be implemented and whether North Korea would shift from past practice and actually keep its word.

“The joint statement is the most important achievement in the two years since the start of six-party talks,” Wu Dawei, China’s chief negotiator, said.

The seven days of talks ended with a standing ovation by all delegates — from North and South Korea, Japan, Russia, China and the United States — in the secluded Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in a park among willow trees in western Beijing.

North Korea’s agreement to abandon its nuclear programmes came in exchange for promises of oil and energy aid from the five other negotiating partners, as well as security guarantees.

The US and Japan pledged to normalise ties with the impoverished and diplomatically isolated North, and Washington affirmed it had no nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula. In turn, Pyongyang agreed to rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The main sticking point between Washington and Pyongyang in the negotiations, which dragged on beyond the eleventh hour with some parties saying that they were ready to go home even with no deal, was North Korea’s insistence on its right to a civilian nuclear programme. That demand will be met if it regains international trust.

However, North Korea issued a statement early today saying it would not give up its nuclear weapons until it is given civilian nuclear reactors, reinforcing a sticking point at yesterday’s talks.

A foreign ministry spokesman said that America must prove its recognition of Pyongyang’s right to a civilian nuclear programme by providing light-water reactors as soon as possible.

The United States, backed by Japan, had argued that North Korea could not be trusted with atomic energy. China, South Korea and Russia supported the position that if it scrapped its nuclear weapons and agreed to strict safeguards it could have such an energy programme in future.

The stakes were high. Failure to reach an agreement on dismantling nuclear weapons programmes could have prompted Washington to take the issue to the UN Security Council and press for sanctions.

The North had said that sanctions would be tantamount to war. The North is believed to have enough radioactive material for about half a dozen bombs from its plutonium programme. In February the North claimed it had nuclear weapons.

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