According to different sources, the leaders are expected to adopt a joint document in line with China's draft plan of Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament.
The plan proposes closing and sealing North Korean nuclear facilities, including a five-megawatt reactor at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Pyongyang, and the provision of alternative energy sources and economic aid to the impoverished North by the other parties to the talks.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the parties had made considerable progress during the discussion of the final document on the initial stage of the DPRK's nuclear disarmament, but added that consultations would continue on Tuesday afternoon.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said several issues were still to be resolved.
A South Korean source told journalists earlier in the day that the final document should be approved by the governments of all six countries, which comprise two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.
The talks resumed Thursday in Beijing amid hopes for progress toward implementing a September 2005 agreement, in which Pyongyang committed itself to halting its nuclear activities in return for economic and security incentives.
According to sources close to negotiations, North Korea demanded volumes of assistance deemed by participants as "overstated." Exact figures were not mentioned, but North Korea was talking about fuel oil supplies for thermoelectric power plants in the country sufficient to produce 2,000 megawatts of energy annually.
The problem has been who will pay and how much for the assistance.
At a meeting in Berlin last month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan discussed a U.S. freeze of the reclusive regime's Macao bank account over alleged money laundering and counterfeiting. The sanctions prompted the North to withdraw from the six-party talks in 2005.
Pyongyang, which announced its first nuclear weapon test last October, hinted in the run-up to the latest round of Beijing talks that it may be willing to suspend operations at its Yongbyon nuclear facility, which helped it stage the test, if the U.S. delivers on an earlier promise to build a light-water reactor in North Korea and to provide it with steady fuel oil supplies pending the facility's construction.
China's plan also envisions setting up five working groups to oversee denuclearization efforts on the Korean Peninsula, energy supplies to North Korea, cooperation in the security sphere in Northeast Asia, and relations between North Korea and the United States and Japan.
