Envoys from the United States and North Korea have staked out sharply different positions at the start of six-way talks on Wednesday to resolve Pyongyang's nuclear issue. North Korea said it hoped the talks would create "a positive result" and narrow the gap between Pyongyang and Washington. The US stood fast, calling for the irreversible, verifiable dismantling of North Korea's plutonium and uranium weapons programs and repeating that it did not intend to attack a country it branded part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and pre-war Iraq.