US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has expressed belief that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will ultimately agree to a written nuclear verification through diplomatic consultation.

"I think that within the context of the six-party talks, you ultimately will get a verification protocol that allows us to deal with a lot of very troubling activities," Rice said in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations think tank that was released yesterday.

The latest round of six-party talks ended on Dec. 11 without a deal on nuclear verification. Despite the breakdown of the talks, Rice said that "the North Koreans are in a situation in which they are confronting Russia, China, the United States, South Korea, and Japan so that they can't just make this a bilateral problem with the United States."

The latter five countries, which have been in negotiation with the DPRK on the settlement of nuclear issues on the Korean peninsular since August 2003, have diplomatic leverage under a 2007 landmark deal in which Pyongyang agreed to dismantle its weapons-grade plutonium programs in exchange for energy aid, Rice noted.

"And the fuel oil shipments that they (Pyongyang) need, they need not just from the United States but also from South Korea, since South Korea has made clear that their relationship with North Korea depends in part on how denuclearization goes," the US No. 1 diplomat added.

Under an agreement reached at the six-party talks in February 2007, the DPRK agreed to abandon all nuclear weapons and programs, and also promised to declare all its nuclear programs and facilities by the end of 2007. In return, the DPRK would get diplomatic and economic incentives, including its removal from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

After its nuclear envoy Christopher Hill paid a three-day visit to Pyongyang in early October and struck a verification deal with the DPRK to save the stalled six-party talks, the Bush administration dropped the country from the list on Oct. 11.

But the two countries have since disputed over the verification deal. The US side claims that the inspectors, according to the deal reached with the DPRK, could take samples away from the nuclear facilities, while the DPRK insists that it never agreed to remove the samples.