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US skeptical after Pyongyang ignores year-end deadline

US officials expressed skepticism that North Korea would fulfill a pledge to provide a complete list of its nuclear programs as US diplomats prepared to visit Asia for talks.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said on Wednesday: "It is only appropriate that we would be skeptical. This is a very closed society that has had a secret program that's been ongoing."

North Korea failed to meet a year-end deadline on the nuclear programs declaration under an aid-for-disarmament deal.

The US wants the North Korean declaration to address a suspected secret uranium enrichment program. That is an important sticking point that touched off the latest nuclear standoff, in late 2002.

"We don't have any indication that they will not provide" a declaration, Perino said. "But they missed the deadline and we are waiting to hear from them."

Christopher Hill, the chief US envoy at international nuclear talks, will travel to Asia at the end of this week and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte plans a trip to the region in the middle of this month, US officials said.

The State Department did not disclose Hill's itinerary or say if he would meet with North Korean officials.

North Korea promised last February that it would abandon its nuclear ambitions in return for energy aid and political concessions.

In October, it pledged to disable its nuclear facilities and declare its programs by the end of the year in return for the equivalent of 1 million tonnes of oil.

The North shut down its sole functioning atomic reactor in July and began to disable it and other facilities under watch of US experts in November.

North Korea said in a New Year's message on Tuesday that the US should scrap its "hostile" policies toward the communist country.

The statement did not mention the missed deadline.
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