Rice to push North Korea on disarmament

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will push North Korea's foreign minister hard in their first ever meeting today to prove the North's disarmament efforts are serious, US officials said.

Ms Rice is to join foreign ministers from China, Russia, Japan, and the two Koreas at today's meeting -- the first such encounter since "six party" talks began in 2003 and at a time when Washington wants better ties with the North.

Ms Rice will press Pak Ui-chun for details about a mechanism being worked out to check claims Pyongyang made about its weapons-grade plutonium stockpile in a long-delayed accounting delivered last month.

North Korean delegation spokesman Ri Dong-il told reporters that North Korea's goal for today's meeting is to provide the "momentum to complete the second phase measures as agreed at the recent chief envoys' meeting in Beijing".

After North Korea presented the account of its nuclear weapons programme in June, a thaw of ties began with Bush launching a 45-day process to remove Pyongyang from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Today's meeting, on the sidelines of annual talks among Asia-Pacific nations, comes at a time when the Bush administration is tweaking its policy towards North Korea.

President George W. Bush branded North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" together with Iraq and Iran after the September 11th 2001 attacks, but the North is slowly moving away from that rogue status and Washington has slightly eased some sanctions.

Ms Rice said she would deliver a "strong message" to the North Korean minister. But she was at pains to play down the significance of the meeting, telling reporters she did not think they were "historic, or monumental or even consequential" and formal six-party ministerial would be held later in Beijing.

But with the unpopular Iraq war and the Iranian nuclear standoff unresolved, the Bush administration is hoping success in nuclear talks with North Korea will ultimately be logged as a foreign policy success when Bush leaves office.

Reuters