Freshly armed with its nuclear bargaining chip, North Korea has set out an uncompromising stance at its first international talks since testing an atomic device in October.

More than a year after pulling out of the Six Party Talks and two months after being hit by UN sanctions following the underground detonation of a nuclear bomb, Pyongyang confronted America, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia today with what the US called "an exhaustive list" of demands.

The Stalinist regime said it would not abandon its nuclear programme until the UN dropped its sanctions; America changed its "hostile" stance and stopped targeting the offshore bank accounts of its leaders and Pyongyang received the gift of a light-water nuclear reactor.

"The nuclear issues cannot be resolved until the United States takes a co-existence policy," said North Korea's chief negotiator Kim Kye-gwan. "I’m not optimistic about prospects for the Six Party talks."

South Korean diplomats described the demands as "a department store approach" while the US envoy to the talks, Christopher Hill, said Pyongyang was testing the limits of international patience.

"We don’t have the option of walking away from the problem," said Mr Hill. "Their future is very much at stake."

China, instrumental in bringing North Korea to the negotiating table after the October 9 test — which triggered international sanctions and a UN Security Council resolution five days later — remained non-committal about the opening stance of its eccentric ally.

"The issues to be discussed and addressed by this meeting are complex and profound, and the tasks borne by all the parties are both glorious and arduous," Wu Dawei, China's Vice Foreign Minister, told delegates in Beijing.

Today's session was the first meeting of the Six Party Talks for more than a year. Last November, North Korea abandoned negotiations weeks after making a tentative agreement, on September 19, 2005, to drop its nuclear ambitions in return for guarantees of economic aid and military security.

Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, was outraged by attempts by the US Treasury Department to close down bank accounts based in Macao that were believed to be used to launder and counterfeit money for his regime leaders.

Separate talks are expected to take place this week between US officials and their North Korean counterparts to discuss the financial crackdown on Pyongyang but there are few hopes for agreement, with analysts predicting that a nuclear-armed North Korea will be as bold as ever.

"Now that North Korea has the nuclear bargaining chip, it is never going to give it up," said John Feffer, the global affairs director at the US-based International Relations Centre.

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