NEW YORK — Kang Sok Ju, a key architect of North Korea’s nuclear diplomacy who haggled with US negotiators, once by quoting from a favorite American book, died on Friday. He was 76.

The cause was esophageal cancer, the North Korean government said in a statement.

In what was apparently an attempt to drive home his country’s determination to develop nuclear weapons, no matter what the United States said, Mr. Kang once told US negotiators that he would quote from the novel “Gone With the Wind.’’ He said slowly in English, “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.’’

Mr. Kang, the most trusted foreign policy aide of Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s leader from 1994 until his death in 2011 and the father of the current leader, Kim Jong Un, was best known for the “agreement framework,’’ which he negotiated with the United States in 1994 when he was North Korea’s vice foreign minister.

Under that deal, North Korea agreed to suspend activity at its Yongbyon nuclear site in return for fuel shipments and the construction of two light-water nuclear power reactors. The agreement was hailed as a breakthrough, and some still credit it with slowing North Korea’s nuclear weapons development for a time.

But the deal fell apart in 2002 when the United States accused the North of cheating on its terms by secretly pursuing uranium enrichment. James A. Kelly, then the US envoy, visited Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, to confront Mr. Kang with this accusation.

The framework was the first in a series of short-lived accords the United States has struck with North Korea in failed efforts to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. Critics of North Korea say that the country used the deals to win temporary economic incentives while buying time to develop nuclear weapons.

Mr. Kang, a career diplomat, was self-assured but could turn prickly, bombastic, and sarcastic, especially when he was tired, according to “The Two Koreas,’’ by Don Oberdorfer and Robert Carlin.