They believe the six-party talks which began in 2003 are dead in the water for the foreseeable future after the hardline communist state tested a bomb several times more powerful than the one in October 2006.

"The successful nuclear test is greatly inspiring the army and people," official media announced.

"The internal domestic dynamic is taking precedence over external factors," said Peter Beck, a Korea expert at the American University in Washington.

"This is part of Kim shoring up support for his regime among the inner circle and the public. The best evidence of this will be if they hold a large public rally in coming days, as they did in 2006."

Beck told AFP that 67-year-old Kim, widely believed to have suffered a stroke last August, "is not in good shape and he knows it."

He and other analysts said Kim feels pressed to settle the power transfer -- ultimately involving one of his sons -- before his health worsens.

Kim's influential brother-in-law Jang Song-Thaek, seen by some as a potential "regent" for one of the sons, was given a place on the powerful National Defence Commission in April.

"Kim is trying to impress the cadres and the elite in general that this (test) is a significant accomplishment, to convince powerholders that his family is the one that should be ruling the country," Beck said.

He said the fact that the North made no realistic demands before its second test meant "it is not unreasonable to conclude that they are no longer interested in nuclear diplomacy."

John Bolton, a hawkish former US ambassador to the United Nations, told AFP the North wants nuclear weapons because it is motivated by the desire to preserve its isolated dictatorship, and has no interest in nuclear diplomacy.

And Bruce Klingner said the North's eagerness to conduct a nuclear test so soon after its April 5 long-range missile launch "shows it has abandoned its previous facade of negotiations" and is striving to achieve a viable nuclear weapon and a long-range missile to deliver it.

"The rapid pace of Pyongyang's provocations since January indicates it has altered its objectives and is no longer responsive to diplomatic entreaties," he wrote on the website of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think tank.

The North, said Klingner, is now bent on achieving strategic technological achievements rather than gaining tactical negotiating leverage.

As such, there was likely to be more missile and nuclear activity during 2009.

Klingner said the change in objectives "may have been triggered by Kim Jong-Il's health crisis and a desire to achieve nuclear objectives prior to his death or a formal succession."

Some believe the North might eventually be willing to talk but only as a recognised nuclear power -- something which Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have always adamantly refused to accept.

"They are interested in nuclear arms control negotiations with the US where two established nuclear states negotiate mutual arms reductions, but never fully give up their weapons," said Victor Cha, who was President George W. Bush's top adviser on Korean affairs.

If so, the six-nation talks appear doomed. Their objective is the North's total nuclear disarmament in exchange for energy aid and major security and diplomatic benefits.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged recently it "seems implausible if not impossible" at present that the North will return to the negotiations.

"The ball is in the North Korean court, and we are not concerned about chasing after North Korea, about offering concessions to North Korea," she said this month.

earlier related report
NKorea, Iran throw roadblock for Obama
North Korea and Iran have thrown cold water on President Barack Obama's vision of dialogue with US foes -- and experts warn there may be little he can do for now to change their minds.

North Korea on Monday detonated an atomic bomb as powerful as the one that ravaged Hiroshima, brazenly defying Obama's calls both for dialogue and for a global ban on nuclear tests.

On the same day, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ruled out talks with world powers on Iran's nuclear drive and instead proposed a debate with Obama -- who had sent an unprecedented video appeal to Iranians in March.

Obama has made reaching out to US adversaries a hallmark of his young presidency, saying in his inauguration speech in January that he would extend his hand to all leaders "if you are willing to unclench your fist."

Obama condemned North Korea and urged international action. But the famously calm leader also showed he was not in panic mode, playing golf on Monday -- the Memorial Day holiday -- for more than four hours.

Analysts said Obama was up against the stark reality that no matter what his overtures, US foes have their own internal dynamics at play.

L. Gordon Flake, executive director of the Mansfield Foundation think-tank who advised Obama on North Korea during his campaign, warned against conventional wisdom that the test was mostly a way to pressure Washington.

North Korea's main motivation, he argued, was domestic -- to shore up the regime's strength as leader Kim Jong-Il's health wanes following his stroke last year.

"To presume that this is a way to try to get the Obama administration's attention would be to presume that they want to start negotiations. And there has been zero indication of that," Flake said.

"It's pretty clear that in the waning days of the (George W.) Bush administration, they made a decision to abandon the six-party talks process and to go full-speed ahead with their own nuclear program," Flake said.

North Korea last month pulled out of a six-nation aid-for-disarmament deal reached in 2007 in protest at a UN Security Council statement condemning it for testing a long-range missile. Monday's test drew a similar rebuke from the UN Security Council.

Victor Cha, who was Bush's top adviser on Korean affairs, also rebuffed the "standard answer" by experts that Pyongyang was trying to provoke Obama to agree to face-to-face negotiations.

"Pyongyang has rebuffed all serious efforts by the Obama administration thus far to engage in high-level talks," said Cha, now a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Georgetown University.

Cha said North Korea may instead be seeking the status of a nuclear weapons state or security guarantees as the communist state transforms -- perhaps without Kim Jong-Il at the helm.

"These goals pose formidable challenges for the United States and other members of the six-party talks," Cha said.

Iran, for its part, goes to the polls on June 12 and analysts said that Ahmadinejad and other hardliners find it impossible to do an about-face and respond to Obama after campaigning for years on anti-Americanism.

Ahmadinejad has championed Iran's nuclear drive, which he says is for peaceful purposes despite widespread suspicion in the West that it aims to develop nuclear weapons.

Scott Snyder, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that Iran would be watching closely to see how forcefully the UN Security Council acts against North Korea.

"Iran and North Korea are really connected at the hip on this issue. What happens with North Korea certainly must be viewed through the lens of Iran and vice versa," Snyder said.

"If the response is perceived as too weak, one effect could be to enhance criticisms of the Obama administration's handling of foreign policy."

Outspoken conservative John Bolton, a US ambassador to the United Nations under Bush, has gone on the offensive, saying Obama's emphasis on diplomacy allowed North Korea to carry out its second nuclear test.

"The North Koreans have thumbed their nose at the administration and now we have to see what kind of stuff they are made of," Bolton said.

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