BEIJING (AFP)--North Korea's long-awaited nuclear declaration will outline the communist nation's nuclear program but not its atomic weapons, a top U.S. negotiator said Tuesday.

Christopher Hill, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, said the declaration expected this week will only list nuclear materials and facilities, a U.S. embassy spokeswoman said.

"The weapons are to be determined at a subsequent phase. The declaration, at this point, the purpose of it, is to list all of their nuclear materials and all their nuclear facilities and programs," the spokeswoman quoted Hill as saying.

"So with regard to weapons, that has always been envisioned for the subsequent phase.... The North Koreans acknowledged that we have to deal with the weapons, but not in this phase."

The White House said Monday it expects the declaration to be handed over Thursday but cautioned that it wouldn't be taken on trust.

"We know the North Koreans have been themselves saying that this Thursday would be the date that they submit their declaration," said spokeswoman Dana Perino. "We will see if that actually happens - and if it does, it must be correct and verifiable."

Under a landmark deal struck in February 2007 between the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia, and Japan, the North agreed to disable its nuclear plants at Yongbyon and declare all nuclear programs by the end of that year.

The secretive state, which tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006, has been disabling the plutonium-producing plants in return for energy aid but disputes over the declaration have stalled the process.

U.S. suspicions of a secret uranium-enrichment weapons program and of nuclear proliferation will now reportedly be addressed in a separate document.

Hill acknowledged the existence of a separate negotiation, but refrained from going into specifics.

"We are going to deal with it as soon as we sit down again to begin to map out the remaining piece of this negotiation," Hill said, referring to the atomic weapons.

The declaration could be handed over during a meeting in Beijing between Hill and envoys from China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia, possibly when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits later this week, a senior U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

    (END) Dow Jones Newswires   06-24-08 0233   Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.