Six-party talks on North Korea’s denuclearization ended Sunday without the expected result and will be suspended for two days, while envoys send a draft statement on disabling North Korea’s nuclear facilities to their governments.

“With the joint efforts of all the parties, we have drawn out a joint document that could be reported to the governments of respective delegations,” the host and chairman of the negotiations, Wu Dawei, reportedly said.

Over the past four days diplomats have “conducted thorough and meaningful discussions about the action plan in the next stage, and reached important consensus,” Wu said.

The Chinese diplomat also said that the document will be made public “as soon as possible,” China’s official Xinhua news agency informed.

According to South Korean negotiator Chun Yun Woo, the joint statement demands the shut down of all nuclear facilities in the communist state by the end of this year.

“An agreement that specifies action plans for the second-phase denuclearization measures was dramatically reached today after substantive consultations among the six parties,” Chun was quoted as saying by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

Before returning to Washington, the United States chief negotiator Christopher Hill said this draft statement “pleasantly surprised” him. The agreement specifies a series of measures to be taken by the US, including the removal of North Korea from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.

Chun said Washington and Pyongyang officials held talks and agreed to remove the Asian country from the list, but a date hasn’t been released, only the officials knowing “when that should take place.”

The American diplomat said he and the other delegates have reached “pretty good consensus on the way ahead. We know what we are going to accomplish by the end of the year.”

Hill also said that discussions focused on the economic aid that would be sent to North Korea, as agreed in February.

Washington officials said Friday that US President George W Bush gave the green light for the shipment of 50,000 tons of fuel oil, valued at 25 million dollars, to the Asian country under the agreement.

“It's action for action. We feel like the North Koreans are taking the right steps in living up to their obligations under the agreements,” National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe was quoted as saying by the Washington Post on Saturday.

The February agreement was reached after three years of six-nation negotiations, North Korea saying it will comply with international requirements and abandon its nuclear programme in return for 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.

The country’s five main nuclear facilities were shut down earlier this year and envoys from China, Japan, Russia, the US, North and South Korea are trying to establish a programme for the disablement of the other facilities.