Speaking on the latest leg of a regional tour aimed at restarting stalled talks, Hill said the reclusive communist state had to show "full transparency" for the process to move forward.

"The issue is for the North Koreans to come forward with a declaration that is complete and correct," Hill told journalists in Beijing after meeting China's nuclear negotiator Wu Dawei.

"The point is to be complete and correct ... we need to know what the scope of their nuclear programmes are."

The Pyongyang regime missed a key December 31 deadline to disable its main nuclear facilities and give a full declaration of its atomic programmes.

That was supposed to be the second phase of a landmark February 2007 deal, after phase one -- the simple shutting down of its main Yongbyon nuclear plant -- was carried out in July.

Hill expected North Korea to hand over the declaration to Chinese officials who are hosting the six-party denuclearisation talks that also include South Korea, Japan and Russia.

The declaration could also be handed over at the next round of talks, he said, adding that neither he nor Wu put forward any proposed dates for restarting discussions.

"Part of it is that the DPRK (North Korea) does not want to acknowledge certain activities," Hill said of North Korea's delay.

"There is concern on their part that to acknowledge certain activities will invite additional questioning on our part and further scrutiny."

He refused to confirm that the delay was over North Korea's reported refusal to provide information on US evidence that the isolated regime maintained a secretive uranium enrichment programme alongside its plutonium powered nuclear plant.

Earlier Hill held talks in Seoul with incoming South Korean president Lee Myung-Bak, who formally takes office on February 25 and has indicated he will take a tougher line on the North than his predecessor.

"It will be very desirable if we could complete the phase two even before this government comes in," Hill told journalists in South Korea in reference to Lee's administration.

"By the time this government does come in, the end of February, we will be focusing on that last phase."

The proposed final phase is for the North to actually dismantle its plants and hand over all nuclear materials.

In return for compliance, North Korea would get up to one million tonnes of fuel or equivalent economic aid as well as diplomatic concessions, including full relations with the United States and Japan and a formal peace treaty.

Hill, who started his regional tour earlier this week in Tokyo, will travel Friday to Moscow.

He called his talks with Wu "very good" and said he felt that both the US and China were "in synch" on what needed to be in North Korea's declaration.

"He (Wu) was fairly optimistic that the overall process is moving forward and that once we get into phase three (complete denuclearisation) we can also make some serious progress," Hill said.

"I want to emphasize that throughout the six-party process, we had these bumps in the road, we had these missed deadlines, but ultimately we had been able to continue to make progress."

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