BEIJING - SENIOR envoys from six countries met in Beijing on Monday for the latest round of talks on dismantling and verifying North Korea's nuclear programmes, amid gloom about the prospects for progress.

The talks, likely a last-ditch effort by the administration of outgoing US President George W. Bush to move ahead on one of its most drawn-out diplomatic challenges, began late in the afternoon and were due to resume early on Tuesday, according to hosts China.

'The Chinese are going to try to put together a draft and circulate something tomorrow (Tuesday),' US chief nuclear envoy Christopher Hill told journalists at the close of Monday's talks.

'It has to do with the verification. The key element will be what we did in Pyongyang. As you know we want to see some further definitions of this.'

Monday's talks included discussions on fuel oil aid to North Korea, the schedule for the disablement of the North's nuclear programmes and the stumbling block issue of verification, Mr Hill said.

Hope for any progress has been dimmed by North Korea's opposition to the removal of atomic samples from its sites by inspectors.

'There is a big gap between North Korea and the remaining five countries over ways to verify (the North's denuclearisation process),' Japan's chief delegate Akitaka Saiki told journalists after Monday's talks.

Before the meeting, South Korean chief envoy Kim Sook expressed a lack of optimism that the ongoing round would bear any fruitful results.

Mr Kim told reporters he hoped the North Koreans were not 'dragging their feet' while waiting to gauge the stance of the incoming administration of US president-elect Barack Obama, who takes office next month.

'Like all six-party meetings, it's going to be a difficult negotiation,' he said.

The talks, grouping the United States, the two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan, got under way at a government compound in western Beijing despite the North's apparent refusal to deal with Japan.

North Korea said on Saturday it would not recognise Japan's participation in protest over Tokyo's refusal to provide energy aid under an accord that offered Pyongyang energy and diplomatic concessions in return for denuclearisation.

'We will neither treat Japan as a party to the talks nor deal with it even if it impudently appears in the conference room, lost to shame,' the communist country's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura countered: 'Japan plans to maintain its close coordination with the countries concerned so that we can proceed with both the nuclear issue and matters involving Japan and North Korea.'

Several of the delegations held preliminary bilateral meetings, including the teams from the two Koreas.

'Bilateral relations also have significance for making progress in the six-party talks,' the chief South Korean negotiator said before meeting with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-Gwan.

Under a landmark 2007 pact, Pyongyang agreed to disable facilities at its plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear complex and reveal its atomic activities.

In return, it was to get one million tonnes of fuel oil or energy aid of equivalent value. About half of that has been delivered.

Japan has withheld its share until North Korea accounts fully for Japanese nationals kidnapped by Pyongyang during the Cold War.

The North has admitted it seized some Japanese to train its spies, and in 2002 let five return. It insists the others are dead, but Japan believes they are alive.

In October, after an apparent agreement on verification procedures, the United States said it would drop North Korea from a terrorism blacklist, and the North reversed plans to restart its plutonium-producing nuclear plants.

But the process has hit a new snag, with North Korea, which tested an atomic weapon in October 2006, resisting the idea of letting inspectors take away samples. -- AFP