US: No concessions on N Korea deal

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The US government will not compromise on tough measures to verify North Korea's nuclear disarmament, officials in Washington have said, dismissing suggestions that it was desperate to salvage a six-nation pact agreed last year.

With a top US envoy in Pyongyang hoping to get the deal back on course, US officials on Thursday rejected notions that the Bush administration was preparing to back down on key demands in order to achieve a foreign policy success.

"What the other five members are looking for from North Korea is agreement on a verification protocol and that is an irreducible component of the six-party process moving forward," Sean McCormack, a state department spokesman, told reporters

North Korea has accused the US of reneging on a promise to remove it from a blacklist of alleged state sponsors of terrorism, a status Washington says will change once Pyongyang adopts the verification procedures.

It has also objected to US plans for detailed inspections and searches as part of the verification process which it says would be a violation of its dignity.

As a consequence, last month North Korea announced it had stopped work on disabling its main nuclear plant at Yongbyon, barring UN inspectors from the site and announcing plans to restart the main reactor.

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Face-saving

On Friday Christopher Hill, the chief US negotiator in North Korea's nuclear programme, was expected to wrap up a visit to the North after spending an extra day in negotiations with senior North Korean officials aimed at salvaging the disarmament deal.

Hill was expected to table a face-saving suggestion for Pyongyang to submit to China – North Korea's closest ally - its version on how its nuclear declaration should be verified, according to an AFP report citing US officials.

However, with communications into North Korea difficult US officials said it was unclear how North Korean officials had reacted to the proposal.

"The ball is really in the North Koreans' court," McCormack told reporters at the state department on Thursday.

In separate comments an unnamed senior US official said Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, was not prepared to compromise on the demand for strict verification of Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

"From her point of view, they meet the criteria or they don't and there is nothing inevitable about this process," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

North Korea, which tested an atomic weapon in October 2006, had agreed to disable its nuclear programme in return for aid and other concessions under a pact with South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the US.

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