United States: President George Bush has met a Chinese special envoy in an attempt to agree a common approach to sanctioning North Korea for its claim to have successfully tested a nuclear weapon this week.
The meeting came as the United States circulated a revised United Nations Security Council resolution outlining steps that should be taken against Pyongyang.
The new resolution would ban travel by anyone involved in North Korea's nuclear programme, freeze assets related to the programme and forbid the sale or transport to North Korea of materials that could be used for it.
The new draft drops an earlier proposal to require inspections of all cargo going in and out of North Korea, although the resolution would allow such checks.
The US has also abandoned a proposal to freeze assets relating to counterfeiting and narcotics and the new resolution does not include a Japanese proposal to ban North Korean ships and aircraft from other countries.
The US has been pressing for a vote on the resolution as early as today but China and Russia yesterday suggested that negotiations at the UN could continue through the weekend.
"I think that, of course, people are talking about a possible vote tomorrow, but I'm not sure. There are many common grounds that members agree. But there are some disagreements," China's UN ambassador Wang Guangya said.
US ambassador John Bolton said that agreeing a resolution in the same week that North Korea's claimed nuclear test occurred would send an important signal about how seriously the international community took the action.
"There are still differences on some important aspects of the resolution. We're going to continue to work on it, but we're not going to work on it at the cost of losing sending a swift and strong response," he said.
China joined other UN Security Council member states in a unanimous condemnation of North Korea's action earlier this week, but Beijing has now stepped back from punitive action against Pyongyang.
Mr Wang said that UN action should be "firm, forceful and also appropriate" but should not aim primarily to punish North Korea.
"By appropriate I mean it should reflect the feelings of the international community. But more important, it should be helpful for leading to a solution of this issue by peaceful means and it should also create conditions for the parties to once again engage in negotiations," he said.
China objects to the new resolution's authorisation of cargo inspections and wants the UN action to be agreed under a section of the UN charter that does not allow it to be enforced by military means.
A national security council official said that, in his meeting with Mr Bush, Chinese special envoy Tang Jiaxuan said Beijing wanted to take tough action against Pyongyang. The official acknowledged, however, that Washington and Beijing had not yet agreed on the details of such action.
"That is obviously something that's going to be left for negotiation up in New York. But I do think that the Chinese came with a message that they agree that there had to be some strong measures ... to convince the North Koreans to get back on a positive negotiating track," the official said.