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 But Rice, in a speech, placed far more emphasis on a demand that the United States and its five negotiating partners have access to North Korean facilities.
She said North Korea had cheated in the past on commitments.
"Obviously, we are not going to take the word of the North Koreans based on what they put on a piece of paper," Rice said at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank, where she maintained "the United States is in a stronger position in Asia" than it was at the start of the Bush administration 7 1/2 years ago.
The first priority for the time that remains, she said, is dealing with North Korea's nuclear programs. North Korea conducted a weapons test in 2006 and is understood to have the capability of producing several more nuclear weapons.
North Korea missed an end-of-2007 deadline to turn over to the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea a full inventory of its programs and a description of its spread of nuclear technology to others.
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 Rice said North Korea "will soon give its declaration of nuclear programs to China," which has taken the lead in joint efforts to entice North Korea to abandon the programs in exchange for security and other benefits.
Rice said President Bush, for instance, would begin procedures to remove North Korea from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and from related economic and political restrictions.
[Associated
Press; By BARRY SCHWEID]
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