WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke on Friday to her partners in the North Korean nuclear talks but “no decision has been taken yet” to strike Pyongyang from a US blacklist, officials said.

Reports from several countries said the United States is close to removing North Korea from its terrorism blacklist in the hope of saving a crumbling nuclear disarmament deal.

But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that “no decision has been taken yet” when asked whether the United States would remove North Korea from the list.

“We are where we were yesterday and the week before and the month before on that issue,” he said, recalling that North Korea must provide a proper plan to verify its disarmament before Washington strikes Pyongyang from the list.

“On this question of the terrorism list, we are fully prepared to meet our obligations as North Korea meets its obligations. And, again, the enabling condition here is agreement on a verification protocol,” he said.

McCormack said the issue involved high level talks within the United States and between the United States and its partners in the six-country negotiations involving the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia.

“Rice just this morning had phone calls with the Japanese foreign minister, the Chinese foreign minister, the South Korean foreign minister,” McCormack told reporters, adding that she would also talk soon to her Russian counterpart.

Reports in several countries said Washington, which sent its chief negotiator Christopher Hill to Pyongyang last week, is nearing agreement with the hard-line communist state on “verification” inspection procedures for its nuclear plants. But Japan objected, saying the North did not deserve an immediate removal from the list and citing Pyongyang’s decision to bar UN inspectors from its Yongbyon nuclear complex.

“Several sources said they had been told the delisting would take place as soon as today (Friday) based on North Korea’s willingness to show cooperation on the verification plan,” The Washington Post reported.

South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper said both sides have virtually reached an agreement that the North will resume disabling its Yongbyon atomic complex in return for being taken off the list.

Yongbyon was shut down in July last year under an aid-for-disarmament deal agreed by the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, China and Japan after the North staged its first nuclear weapons test in October 2006. Washington insists on an agreement on procedures to verify the disarmament process before it can drop the North from the terror list, which blocks some bilateral and multilateral aid.

However Pyongyang, angered at the delay, is preparing to restart Yongbyon, which made the plutonium for nuclear bombs.