The six-party talks aimed at convincing North Korea to relinquish its nuclear ambitions appear to be in terminal decline, analysts say after several diplomatic meetings this month failed to break an impasse in the talks.

President George W. Bush and Hu Jintao, his Chinese counterpart, made no progress on the issue during last week?s summit in Washington, then Lee Jeong-seok, South Korea?s unification minister, returned empty-handed from inter-Korean talks in Pyongyang last night. This came after negotiators from the six parties ? China, Japan, Russia, the US and the two Koreas ? attended a security forum in Tokyo this month but where the US and North Korean representatives did not even meet.