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The United States approved the tentative agreement reached at six-party denuclearization talks in full after a review with the White House, the State Department said Tuesday.

The deal is said to contain detailed steps toward North Korea's disablement of its key nuclear facilities and declaration of its atomic stockpile, and benefits Pyongyang would receive in return.

"We studied it, talked about it, examined it, gave our approval to the Chinese," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

China is the host of the six-party talks that also involve South and North Korea, the U.S., Russia and Japan. The negotiations recessed briefly for review of the tentative deal in respective capitals.

Christopher Hill, the top U.S. nuclear envoy, came back from the talks in Beijing with the draft accord. He briefed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in New York, and further discussions were held at the White House Tuesday morning, McCormack said.

It was not yet certain whether all other capitals had also given the go-ahead.

The agreement would fulfill the second-phase implementation of the Feb. 13 accord, which lays out phased actions toward an eventual dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons and programs. Pyongyang came through the first phase by shutting down its main reactor and surrounding facilities, believed to have been churning out weapons-grade plutonium.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 (Yonhap)