High-level inter-Korean talks went into a one-day recess on Wednesday without a breakthrough in efforts to persuade the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to return to multilateral negotiations on the nuclear issue of the peninsular, Yonhap reported.

The two-day meeting, opened Monday at the DPRK's border city of Kaesong, will resume on Thursday.

The border meeting, originally scheduled to end Tuesday, was extended into Wednesday after negotiations hit a snag, it said, adding that the two sides decided to recess the meeting and resume it a day later.

The first inter-Korean meeting in 10 months was supposed to tackle bilateral issues, but South Korea made the nuclear issue a priority. South Korean officials say resolution of the nuclear issue is key to peace on their divided peninsula.

In first-day talks on Monday, South Korea promised to present the DPRK with an "important proposal" that can lead to substantial progress in the nuclear issue if the DPRK comes back to the negotiating table, Yonhap reported, adding that the proposal may include massive economic assistance and more concrete security assurance for the DPRK.

On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told reporters: "What we're going to do is to formulate a proposal that would be closer to a compromise among participating countries and that has sufficient room for each party to accept."

(Xinhua News Agency May 18, 2005)