WASHINGTON, April 24 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - North Korea told American envoys it has nuclear weapons at three-way crisis talks in Beijing which ended a day ahead of schedule Thursday, April 24, with the United States warning its "axis of evil" foe it will not bow to threats.

The talks, the first direct high-level encounter between Washington and Pyongyang since a nuclear showdown erupted in October, featured "strong views" on all sides, and no new consultations are currently planned, U.S. officials said.

"They said what we always knew, that they do have weapons. That doesn't shock us, we have been saying it. Now they have said it," said one U.S. source familiar with the discussions.

U.S. intelligence analysts previously said North Korea could have up to two nuclear weapons, but it has never before explicitly confirmed those suspicions.

Pyongyang is thought to have the capacity to produce another five or six more bombs if it reprocesses 8,000 spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear plant, and is accused by the United States of pursuing a separate program based on enriched uranium.

U.S. officials declined to publicly confirm North Korea's bombshell announcement to U.S. Asia envoy James Kelly in the talks with Pyongyang and China which started Wednesday, April 23.

"We have certainly said for many years that we though North Korea had nuclear weapons, so it would not come as any great surprise for them to say something like that," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

"They said a lot of things that require careful analysis."

But sources said U.S. television reports that North Korea had threatened to test a nuclear device to prove it was a nuclear power were "not accurate."

"With respect to the other things that are streaming across your television channels, about testing, they never used the word 'testing', we are still translating but it is being overplayed a bit."

The three-way talks did not collapse but ended before their scheduled close Friday, April 25, the sources said.

"The talks did not break down, the talks ended, they ended early," said the source, adding that China had forcefully stated in the consultations that it wanted a non-nuclear Korean peninsula.

Boucher said trilateral consultations took place Wednesday, but Thursday's dialogue was limited to U.S.-China and North Korea-China sessions.

There was no one-on-one meeting between the United States and its bitter "axis of evil" foe.

Secretary of State Colin Powell earlier said the trilateral component of the dialogue was now over, but did not rule out further U.S.-China or North Korea-China talks Friday.

"Strong views were presented, the North Koreans presented their point of view strongly, the Chinese did as well, as did the United States," Powell said.

"The sides will return to their capitals and assess what they heard, analyze proposals that were put down by the parties and determine where we will go next."

Pyongyang has insisted the nuclear crisis must be resolved in a bilateral dialogue with the United States, but the Bush administration has refused such a forum, demanding multilateral talks involving Asian regional powers.

The United States has demanded a verifiable end to North Korea's nuclear program.

Pyongyang has demanded security guarantees, and is thought to want U.S. financial aid an investment, an approach slammed by Washington as nuclear "blackmail."

Powell delivered a stern warning to Pyongyang after it cranked up its rhetoric during the talks, saying "war may break out any moment" due to tensions with the United States.

North Korean officials should not leave the talks "with the slightest impression that the United States and its partners and the nations in the region will be intimidated by bellicose statements or by threats or actions they think might get them more attention or might force us to make a concession that we would not otherwise make," he said.

"They would be very ill-advised to move in that direction."