The five Americans, who returned Saturday to Beijing, were allowed to see everything they requested, said John W. Lewis, a Stanford University professor emeritus of international relations.

"We did go to Yongbyon," Lewis said, referring to the nuclear facility that has been closed to outsiders since the North expelled U.N. inspectors at the end of 2002.

The Americans wouldn't say how much time they spent at Yongbyon or what else they saw. They said they couldn't give more details until two delegation members who are on the staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report Washington.

North Korea said Saturday that it showed its "nuclear deterrent force" to the delegation, a news agency reported, quoting an unnamed North Korean Foreign Ministry official. No further details were immediately given by the North Korea's official KCNA news agency, monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

Others in the U.S. delegation were Sig Hecker, a former director of Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, and Jack Pritchard, a former staff member of the U.S. National Security Council and a former State Department official.

The United States, China, the Koreas, Russia and Japan have been trying to arrange a new round of talks to end the standoff over the North's nuclear program. The last round ended in August with neither a settlement nor a date to meet again.

The dispute flared in October 2002 when Washington accused North Korea of running a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 agreement. A U.S.-led international coalition cut off free oil shipments being supplied under the accord.

North Korea said last month it hopes to hold a new round of talks early this year. But on Friday, it suggested that such negotiations might be tough, warning against expecting the North to follow "some Middle East countries" - an apparent reference to Libya's decision to renounce weapons of mass destruction.

Lewis stressed that the trip by the American delegation was a private effort aimed at improving understanding of North Korean issues.

"We were not there to negotiate. We were not there to be inspectors," he said.

Throughout the visit, North Korean officials were "very cooperative, very courteous," Hecker said.

Lewis said the delegation met North Korean military, foreign affairs, scientific and economic officials, but he wouldn't identify them or say what they discussed.

The start of the visit Tuesday coincided with the North's announcement that it was willing to freeze its nuclear program - an offer that Secretary of State Colin Powell called positive.

North Korea said it would not test or produce nuclear weapons and even stop operating its nuclear power industry "as first-phase measures of the package solution." The announcement said its proposal should be the focus of preparations for new talks.

The North's statement Friday claimed the United States was "hyping recent developments" in the Middle East. It didn't refer by name to Libya, which last month announced after talks with the United States and Britain that it would abandon its weapons of mass destruction.

"To expect any 'change' from the (North Korean) stand is as foolish as expecting a shower from clear sky," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman quoted by the government's news agency. "It is the historical truth that peace is won and defended only with strength."

The Bush administration has said it wants evidence that North Korea is beginning to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs before it delivers any concessions.

South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles affairs with North Korea, says North Korea has at least three nuclear reactors.

Last year, it restarted a five-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon. An unfinished 50-megawatt reactor also stands at Yongbyon, and a 200-megawatt one is located just northeast of the site at Taechon, it says.

A U.S.-led international consortium had been building two 1,000-megawatt light-water reactors on the country's east coast. But that was suspended last month because of the nuclear standoff.

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