WASHINGTON - The United States said on Tuesday it had approved a tentative deal for North Korea to disclose all its nuclear programs and disable its Yongbyon atomic plant.
"We have conveyed to the Chinese government our approval for the draft statement," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
Separately, the top U.S. negotiator with North Korea said he expected China to announce the deal, hammered out over the weekend in talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, in the next day or two.
If approved by all six parties and carried out by North Korea, the agreement would mark a step toward the U.S. goal of getting North Korea to abandon all its nuclear weapons and atomic programs.
The secretive, Stalinist state detonated a nuclear device nearly a year ago and U.S. officials believe it has enough plutonium to make at least eight or nine nuclear bombs, which could threaten South Korea and Japan.
Those two countries were also unsettled when Washington disclosed in 2002 it believed Pyongyang also had a uranium enrichment program that could provide a second path to an atomic bomb.
Speaking at the United Nations, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon stressed the importance his country placed on operations at Yongbyon. He told the General Assembly it was "a courageous political decision to halt their operation and now enter the stage of disabling them for eventual dismantlement."
Choe said implementing the agreement "rests with every single party fulfilling its own obligations" and repeated Pyongyang's long-standing demand that Japan and the United States drop their "hostile policies" toward his country.
