There are no signs that negotiations aimed at getting North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program are going to resume anytime soon. In fact, if anything, the tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have only increased.

As of now, President Bush has indicated he will not start direct talks with the North Koreans and will only negotiate with them as part of the six nation talks which also include China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

In addition, in the past week, Bush has referred to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il as a 'dangerous person . . . who starves his people' and has set up 'huge concentration camps.'

The North Korean government did not take these comments lying down. Pyongyang issued a statement calling Bush 'a hooligan bereft of any personality as a human being' and said that there will be no solution to this situation until Bush is out of office.

Last week, the North Koreans tested a short range missile in the Sea of Japan. Rumors continue to abound that they will soon follow this with a test of a nuclear weapon.

All of this seems to be pointing towards the fact that there will be no negotiations in the near future between the United States and North Korea. Furthermore, it appears highly unlikely that the six nation talks will resume anytime soon.

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon announced sounded pessimistic about the immediate future of the talks. 'North Korea should realize the current situation in which the six-party talks are not taking place cannot go on aimlessly, and should stop hanging on to unreasonable allegations,' he said. 'I can tell you that our government is reviewing measures with all possibilities in mind.'

Experts are questioning President Bush's handling of the crises. 'I worry a little bit that unless the U.S. is a little more flexible in our approach to North Korea, soon we'll find ourselves blamed by China and South Korea as the ones' preventing talks from going forward said Richard Armitage, the top assistant of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, told the Japanese daily 'Asahi Shimbun.'

Pyongyang refuses to go forward with negotiations without an apology from Bush. That appears a remote possibility at best. Right now, a stalemate appears to have been reached. North Korea may attempt to end the stalemate by testing its nuclear weapons. That would certainly up the ante in this high stakes game of international chicken. But it's also exactly what the United States doesn't want to happen.