US officials denied that a rare series of meetings between senior US and North Korean diplomats marked a break with the Bush administration’s long-standing refusal to negotiate directly with the Stalinist regime. “This is not an instance of bilateral negotiations,” Tony Snow, President George W. Bush’s spokesman, said of the three days of talks on North Korea’s nuclear program this week between chief US negotiator Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan. Full Story