WASHINGTON (AFP) - More than a decade of U.S. diplomacy failed to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program and immediate prospects of new talks following the hardline communist state's reported nuclear test appear remote, experts say.

Pyongyang's first-ever atomic test Monday came despite a deal forged during three years of multilateral talks under the current administration of U.S. President George W. Bush and direct talks under his predecessor Bill Clinton, which led to a temporary freeze of North Korea's nuclear arms program.

But the agreements collapsed due to differences among nations negotiating with North Korea, Pyongyang's failure to live up to its commitments and undercutting by hawks within the Bush administration.

"The point is that the diplomatic process played directly into the North Korean hands," said George Friedman, head of Stratfor, a leading U.S. security consulting intelligence agency.

By participating in the protracted negotiations, North Korea merely wanted to preserve its regime and gain recognition from the "great powers" with its nuclear brinkmanship, he said.

"North Korea is a country with a GDP the size of Togo's and yet is being treated as if it were equal by the United States, Russia and China. It has achieved what it wanted," Friedman said.

In the six-party talks involving the United States, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas, "multilaterism essentially paralyzed the negotiating process," while direct talks underscored the failure to enforce agreements, he said.

Compounding the problem, other experts said, was a split between hawks and moderates in the Bush administration, which eventually led to financial sanctions against North Korea and in effect the collapse of a September 2005 agreement.

Under the pact, Pyongyang had agreed to disband its nuclear arms in return for aid as well as diplomatic and security guarantees but walked out of the talks in protest over the sanctions campaigned for by the hardliners.

On his part, Clinton had tried to woo the North Koreans by offering to build two light-water reactors to replace their graphite-moderated reactors, which can produce weapons-grade plutonium.

But the construction, which was already suffering crippling delays, was suspended after the Bush administration in 2002 accused the North of developing a secret uranium-enrichment program.

The North responded by throwing out weapons inspectors and leaving the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

A lot of finger-pointing is going on between the Republican and Democratic parties over the failure to reign in the North Koreans ahead of mid-term Congressional elections in November.

"This is not a question of the format of the discussion. This is a question of a regime that basically hasn't made the fundamental decision to get rid of these weapons programs that it's been working on, developing for 30 years," said Christopher Hill, the U.S. pointman to the six-party talks.

The Bush administration is unlikely to enter new talks with the North Koreans until they have implemented the September 2005 accord.

"I think the United States is not willing to go back to the table under current conditions," said Derek Mitchell, an East Asia expert at the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.