N. Korea says it fulfilled nuclear deal

North Korea's Foreign Ministry declared that it had fulfilled a commitment to provide U.S. officials with a full list of its nuclear activities before a Dec. 31 deadline, and intended to do no more.

"As far as the nuclear declaration on which wrong opinion is being built up by some quarters is concerned, [North Korea] has done what it should do," the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

U.S. officials insisted that Pyongyang had not yet provided the declaration that it promised on two occasions last year.

"The North Koreans need to get about the business of completing the declaration," said Sean McCormack, the chief State Department spokesman. "It is another data point that will indicate that they are serious about denuclearizing the Korean peninsula."

The North Korean government last year pledged a step-by-step program of disabling and then dismantling its nuclear complex in return for various rewards, including fuel oil, steel products and normalization of diplomatic relations.

By the end of last year, North Korea was to have dismantled a decrepit reactor at Yongbyon and disclosed all nuclear assets and activities, including its inventory of bombs and fissile materials and a uranium enrichment program that Pyongyang has so far denied.

But as the year-end deadline passed without completion of the nuclear inventory or full disabling of the reactor, criticism has grown in the United States that Kim Jong Il's government is following a familiar pattern of probing to see what it can obtain without giving up the nuclear program it considers a precious asset.

U.S. officials, who have clung to optimism despite a series of snags, said it was important not to overlook that North Korea said in its statement that it remained committed to the effort.

"I think we're seeing progress on parts of this agreement," said Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman.

But Robert Einhorn, a former senior U.S. official on nonproliferation, said North Korea's statement may be more than just bluster aimed at improving its bargaining position in talks with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. Pyongyang regards secrecy about its nuclear program as a "strategic asset," and may be unwilling to come clean, said Einhorn, who is at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.