Until North Korea lives up to its pledges under last year's aid-for-disarmament deal, she said removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism was "definitely not imminent".

"Right now where we are is waiting on the North Koreans to provide a complete and accurate declaration of their nuclear activities."

On Tuesday a US state department official said that North Korea appeared to have complied with the criteria needed to be removed from the list, a key North Korean demand in exchange for the dismantling of its nuclear weapons programme.

But Dell Dailey, the state department's counterterrorism chief, said the agreement made with the North required "actions for actions".

"We need to have that declaration before we can talk about any next steps," he said.

"We don't have that yet from them. Therefore, there's not any movement on any of the other parts of the agreement."

North Korea accuses the US of failing to meet its commitments and blames Washington for the slow progress in implementing a nuclear deal struck by the US, the Koreas, Japan, China and Russia in February.

The North promised to disable its nuclear reactor and, by the end of last year, give a full disclosure of its nuclear programme to eventually be dismantled in exchange for aid and political concessions.

North Korea says it gave the US a complete list of its nuclear programme in November but Washington says it was not "complete and correct".