Vital to verify N.Korea nuclear issues: U.S. envoy

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - North Korea and its five negotiating partners must agree a clear process for verifying Pyongyang's declarations on its nuclear disarmament, top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said on Tuesday.

Hill told reporters on arrival in Singapore that informal talks this week between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and foreign ministers of the two Koreas, Russia, Japan and China, would centre on Pyongyang's nuclear verification issues and the next phase of disarmament.

"We have met with the others and worked together on what the elements of the verification protocol should be," Hill said.

"Verification is essential and we really shouldn't think of the declaration without verification, so we are working on that and we hope to make some progress on that very soon," he said.

Rice will meet North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun for the first time on Wednesday on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian security forum, having held back from meeting him until now.

The informal meeting follows North Korea's release last month of a long-delayed accounting of its nuclear programs -- leading the United States to begin the process of removing the communist country from a U.S. terrorism blacklist and easing some trade sanctions.

When nuclear envoys of the six nations met in Beijing earlier this month, the five powers pressed Pyongyang to accept a mechanism to verify the claims it had made about its weapons-grade plutonium stockpile.

The envoys did not reach final agreement on detailed guidelines for verifying Pyongyang's account of its nuclear activities, but ordered a working group to draw up the details.

North Korea has denied U.S. accusations that it has a secret program to enrich uranium, a process that could give it an alternative way to produce material for nuclear weapons, separate from its plutonium project.

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Rice would not hold bilateral talks with the North Koreans and that the meetings would not involve negotiations or produce any kind of statements.

"We had the informal meeting a year ago in Manila for the ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum) so I would not exaggerate its importance in that regard. But I think it's an opportunity for people to get together to exchange some thoughts informally. I think a real ministerial meeting would have to wait for scheduling in Beijing," Hill said.

(Reporting by Melanie Lee, editing by Tim Pearce)