U.S. hints Monday deadline for North Korea will lapse

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday North Korea had to make "substantial progress" on a verification plan for its nuclear weapons before being taken off a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Washington promised North Korea it could be removed from the list as early as August 11 -- Monday -- if a robust verification plan was in place, but U.S. officials have made clear this was a "minimum timeline" rather than a fixed date.

State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said Washington was still in negotiations with North Korea on this issue and signaled an announcement was unlikely on Monday.

"We have made it very clear that they would have to have made substantial progress on a verification protocol and that when the day passes (August 11) we will take another look at all that information and decide how to act and when," Gallegos told reporters.

Removal from the list would see an end to sanctions that have mostly cut off North Korea -- which President George W. Bush has branded as part of an "axis of evil" -- from international banking and also clear the way for multilateral aid packages.

Dennis Wilder, a senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, told reporters this week that unless the North Koreans delivered a robust verification plan "August 11 will come and go" without any U.S. delisting of the North.

Gallegos indicated the same.

"I think we have made it very clear to them that that deadline is really not a deadline but a minimum amount of time that we have to begin making our decisions," he said.

In late June when the North presented a long-delayed accounting of its nuclear weapons program, this kicked off the 45-day process to remove Pyongyang from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The 45 days is a window during which Congress can raise objections to the move.

(Reporting by Sue Pleming; Editing by Xavier Briand)