BEIJING, Aug. 7 -- After 13 days of arduous negotiations, diplomats at six-nation talks on North Korean nuclear disarmament acknowledged Sunday that they had reached a deadlock and would return home without agreement on how to revive long-stalled efforts to create a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

China, which hosts the talks, announced that the negotiations would resume during the week of Aug. 29. Wu Dawei, the Chinese delegation chief, acknowledged at a news conference that profound discord had prevented agreement on the basic disarmament principles that were the goal of this round of talks. But he portrayed the decision to pick up the talks again after three weeks of recess as a demonstration of resolve by all six nations to overcome their disagreements.

"The agreement reached among the six parties to resume negotiations shows we do not fear these differences," he declared.

...At the same time, some U.S. officials have criticized the Chinese leadership for refusing to exert more pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program. For instance, China turned down a U.S. request earlier this year to reduce the flow of oil to North Korea as a way to induce the Pyongyang government to give up its nuclear ambitions and return to the talks...