Chickens, rabbits, year of the pig at North Korea talks

BEIJING, Feb 12 (Reuters) They resisted counting unhatched chickens. Then they tried to pull a rabbit from a hatbefore the Year of the Pig trots in. But so far to no avail.

As the negotiators of six-country talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions dragged into a fifth day in Beijing today, however, the aptest metaphor might have been a hamster trapped on a treadmill.

Animal imagery has coursed through the latest talks, starting with guardedly upbeat negotiators reaching for poultry.

''I don't want to count our chickens before they hatch,'' US envoy Christopher Hill told reporters, echoing his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

Hill's North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, was not be to left out of the animal party. ''You should not try to count the chickens before they hatch, as somebody said,'' Kim said.

But as North Korea's demands for huge oil shipments drew shaking heads from other negotiators, Hill grasped for bunnies.

''There's no magic in diplomacy. Whenever you pull a rabbit out of the hat, it's because you've spent a lot of time -- boy, a lot of time -- trying to stuff that rabbit down the hat,'' he said.

The envoys from South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia are hoping that North Korea will lower its demands for energy, allowing a deal before delegates head home as Asian countries prepare to celebrate the Lunar New Year and start of the Year of Pig.

None are optimistic. And perhaps the animal metaphors have not helped.

Before the latest talks began, Hill told reporters in Tokyo he had stopped calling the set of incentives the other countries were offering North Korea an ''early harvest''.

''I thought it was a very nice metaphor. But the North Koreans, I guess, don't like agricultural metaphors, maybe because they've had too many harvest failures,'' he said.

REUTERS PDM DS1055