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The United States will talk to North Korea next week about terms for removing it from the list of terrorism-sponsoring nations, a key demand made by Pyongyang in their negotiations toward denuclearization and diplomatic normalization, the top U.S. nuclear envoy said Wednesday.

Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state, would not give any time frame on when North Korea might be delisted. But he said he and his North Korean counterpart would discuss what Pyongyang needs to do and how far North Korea's denuclearization should progress to meet the criteria for removal.

Hill and North Korean vice foreign minister Kim Kye-gwan meet in Geneva this weekend for the second round of the diplomatic normalization working group. The first talks were held in New York in early March.

The group is one of five established under a Feb. 13 agreement by six parties -- South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan -- that would eventually denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. As Pyongyang disables and dismantles its atomic weapons and programs, other governments would reward it with economic and political benefits, including diplomatic normalization.

"It is important to them," Hill said of the North's demand to be removed from the terrorism-sponsor list.

"We are going to have a discussion about things that they need to do... how far we are going to expect to see denuclearization go" in order to remove Pyongyang from the list, said Hill.

"But we are not going to cup our eyes," he said, emphasizing that Pyongyang must take certain steps, while not elaborating what they are. Once the U.S. does decide to delist the North, the decision must be able to "stand the light of day," Hill said.

A flurry of negotiations is expected in September, when the six-party plenary session is scheduled, possibly in mid-month, to tackle the next phase of the Feb. 13 deal, in which Pyongyang is required to declare its stockpile and disable the atomic facilities.

The benchmark of success would be whether this plenary meeting will produce "something that looks like a February agreement" on disablement and declaration, said Hill, which will pave the way for the six-nation ministerial meeting.

"October sounds reasonable to me," the envoy said of the ministerial session.

Hill said while the agreement does not address nuclear weapons the North is believed to have already built, all parties, including Pyongyang, understand that they are included in the denuclearization plan.

"Weapons phase is what I refer to as endgame and what I would hope to be on to by the beginning of '08," said the envoy.

"They understand what I've said about that, absolutely."

He dismissed criticism that the North's nuclear facilities are already dilapidated and near inoperable, and thus their shutdown was not a serious concession by Pyongyang.

"This is not a spring chicken of a nuclear reactor. That's for sure," he said. "But on the other hand, it was working, it was churning out, you know, spent fuel until the day it was shut down."

The envoy said he still believes the disablement phase can be completed within this year, which leaves only four months.

"We are definitely not halfway there," he said, "but we are beyond just the beginning."

At the denuclerization working group in Shenyang last month, negotiators said the North reaffirmed its commitment to the February agreement but that the parties could not pin down what "disablement" meant in terms of actions.

"There are many ways to disable nuclear programs...There was a lot of exchanges of views on that, and I think we can come up with something," said Hill.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (Yonhap)