By Chris Buckley BEIJING, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Prospects for an initial agreement on ending North Korea's nuclear arms programme were clouded on Sunday as talks entered a fourth day without an accord on how to compensate Pyongyang for moving to disarm. Envoys to the talks from North and South Korea, the United States, Russia, Japan and host China have agreed on most of a plan that would oblige Pyongyang to shut down nuclear activities in return for economic and security assurances. But North Korea is at odds with the other five countries over a single paragraph of the draft agreement, top U.S. envoy Christopher Hill told reporters late on Saturday. "If we can get closure on this issue, we can solve an overall problem and get a set of initial actions," he said. Disagreement could delay, if not scuttle, the plan and undermine the whole talks, Hill added. "If we don't solve this I think it's sort of tough to reconvene the six parties," he said. The row is the latest act in a long-running drama setting a wary and isolated North Korea against the five other countries, which have urged it to end nuclear weapons ambitions that culminated in the North's first atomic test blast in October. Hill has refused to say exactly what is snagging negotiations. But other diplomats have said the row is over the energy and aid incentives Pyongyang would receive in return for shutting down its Yongbyon nuclear plant, which makes plutonium usable in nuclear weapons. "A huge gap remains between North Korea and the five countries in terms of figures and volume," one source close to the talks said. ILLICIT In September 2005, six-party talks agreed a joint statement sketching out the nuclear disarmament steps Pyongyang needed to take to secure fuel and economic aid, as well as political acceptance from its longtime adversary, the United States. But that deal languished after Washington accused North Korea in late 2005 of laundering income from counterfeiting U.S. currency and other illicit business. The ensuing crackdown on a bank in Macau enraged Pyongyang, which stayed away from the six-party talks until international condemnation after the nuclear test drew it back in December. Japan's Kyodo news agency said that at the latest talks North Korea had demanded energy aid equivalent to more than 2 million tonnes of fuel oil annually in exchange for the initial steps towards abandoning its nuclear weapons capability. China's envoy Wu Dawei had said the talks would likely last three or four days. Negotiators still hoped to agree on a joint statement and it was worth staying in China and trying to clinch the deal, Hill said. "If I didn't think there was a prospect, I would be on a plane out of here," he said on Saturday. Japan's chief negotiator Kenichiro Sasae sounded a bleaker note, as he has in previous days. "Issues have been narrowed, but we can't see any solution to several issues," Sasae said on Saturday. "North Korea and the five countries are considerably far apart."
