The UNITED STATES Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has suggested that the US is backing off on a demand that has stalled nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea.

Negotiations have been in limbo since the end of last year in a dispute about how specific, and how public, the lists of Pyongyang's nuclear programs had to be.

Secretary RICE said the Bush administration has decided that the contents of the North Korean declaration are less important than an assurance that the US and other nations can check up on the North to make sure it is not resuming nuclear activities.

"Any document that we get, any declaration that we get, has to be verified, and has to be verifiable. And we have to make certain that we have means to assess what the North Koreans tell us and we have to have means to verify what the North Koreans tell us."

US officials say the net result is the same, but the North can split its inventory into two parts, one specific and one more vague.

That makes it more palatable to the North, whose representatives apparently agreed to the plan during recent meetings with a US diplomat.

Asked about a possible agreement to break the impasse, Rice said the North must provide the information, but her emphasis is on what would happen next: verifying that the North is telling the truth.

Rice said that verification can take some time to do, but that after the US is satisfied, it will be ready to move ahead on promises it made the North to drop sanctions against it.