TOKYO -- North Korean diplomats on Tuesday rejected a Japanese demand to stop developing nuclear weapons, a condition for receiving badly-needed economic aid.

North Korea also accused Japan of reneging on its pledge to return five Japanese citizens who are visiting Japan for the first time since North Korean agents abducted them nearly 25 years ago.

There were no smiles when delegates from the two nations shook hands and took their chairs at the Japanese Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to resume full-scale diplomatic dialogue for the first time in two years. After only a few hours of frank conversation, it was clear that little immediate headway was likely in the contentious bargaining between the Asian neighbors.

That bargaining was made more pressing by North Korea's admission that it has continued to develop nuclear weapons, despite agreeing in 1994 not to.

The Bush administration wants to avoid a serious crisis in Asia while its focus is on disarming Iraq, but there is no easy solution for North Korea. The White House has ruled out a military strike, because it probably would start a new Korean war. Bush also has ruled out negotiating with North Korea until it dismantles its nuclear weapons-development program.

The talks Tuesday were the first with North Korean officials since President Bush met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean leader Kim Dae-jung on Saturday to coordinate an agenda for negotiations with the unpredictable, Stalinist regime.

The three nations agreed North Korea must dismantle its nuclear weapons program in a "prompt and verifiable manner" and suggested they might agree to turn up the economic pressure -- or at least refuse to give badly needed humanitarian and economic aid -- if North Korea refused.

South Korea and Japan have been eager to improve relations with the isolated North Korean regime as one way of inducing peaceful reform, but the Bush administration is more skeptical, accusing North Korea's leadership of being part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran.

Tuesday's talks resulted from Koizumi's landmark trip to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, on Sept. 17, in which North Korean leader Kim Jong Il stunned the Japanese by admitting that his government had kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens nearly 25 years ago.

Those talks were quickly overshadowed, however, by U.S. disclosures that North Korea also had admitted to violating the 1994 pact, in which it promised to stop developing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons in exchange for fuel oil and civilian nuclear-power plants. Washington is demanding that Japan refuse to accommodate Pyongyang until it abandons its nuclear weapons-development program.

During the talks, the North "completely denied" Japanese demands that it give up its nuclear weapons program, a Japanese official said. The North Koreans said they needed to maintain nuclear capabilities as long as the United States continued to threaten Pyongyang's sovereignty, suggesting America's military posture was "the root of the problem," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

While Japanese negotiators insisted on talking about North Korea's nuclear program and the fate of eight other people who were kidnapped from Japan more than two decades ago, Pyongyang wanted to focus on normalizing diplomatic relations, saying the other matters could be resolved in due course.

But its admission that it kidnapped at least 13 Japanese citizens decades ago has triggered a serious backlash in Japan.

Parents of the eight citizens abducted whom the North Koreans say have died continue to insist on more information about what happened to their children.

The other five citizens abducted, who survived, were supposed to return to Pyongyang on Tuesday but stayed in Japan. The Japanese government has demanded that their families be brought to Japan.
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