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A White House official indicated Thursday that North Korea's nuclear proliferation issues would be handled separately from the required declaration of the country's atomic inventory.

Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council's senior director for Asia, said that the two issues are being "handled in a different manner."

A team of U.S. experts will go to Pyongyang next week to discuss related issues, he said.

Wilder was briefing reporters ahead of the weekend Camp David summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

In addition, he said that the U.S. is hopeful that the beef issue, which is hampering legislative approval of the two countries' bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), will be resolved during Lee's visit here.

South Korea and the U.S. are members of what is known as the six-party talks, a forum created with the goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. North Korea, Japan and Russia, too, are members of the forum hosted by China, also a participant.

The process has gone as far as agreements that eventually would dismantle Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and programs, but it has been challenged by North Korea's refusal to submit a "complete and correct" declaration of its atomic inventory and any proliferation activities.

The deadline was Dec. 31, 2007.

U.S. and North Korean nuclear envoys met in Singapore last week to seek a breakthrough, but Washington has yet to say the two sides reached a full agreement. Pyongyang claimed that they had an accord, under which the North would provide the declaration and the U.S. would make "political compensations."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a separate briefing at the State Department, said the six-party talks have made progress but she remains cautious and skeptical about Pyongyang's commitment.

Sources here have said the Singapore meeting did move forward on the compromise over the declaration, which would be divided into disclosure on the North's plutonium production, and another on uranium enrichment and proliferation.

Wilder said the uranium and proliferation issues are "side negotiations" between the U.S. and North Korea, apart from plutonium.

"That's a different matter because that involves different kinds of activities, such as proliferation, and that is being handled in a different manner," he said.

The U.S. and other members of the six-party talks also need to know about the facilities that produced nuclear weapons, he said.

"And that is a declaration. That is what we expect to see in the declaration, the plutonium cycle that led to nuclear weapons."

On beef, Wilder said the U.S. is "extremely hopeful" of an agreement at the negotiations ongoing in Seoul.

"It is a very cooperative process, a cordial process we are involved in. So I think's it's looking hopeful," he said.

Senior U.S. legislators have vowed to oppose the FTA until South Korea reopens its market fully to American beef products.

The complete import ban, invoked immediately after the discovery of mad cow disease at a U.S. cattle farm in late 2003, was partially lifted to allow in boneless parts from calves 30 months or younger.

The prospects of ratifying the Korea-U.S. FTA this year dimmed as the U.S. Congress refused to vote on the Colombia deal submitted by President Bush last week. The Democrats, who control Congress, are traditionally opposed to free trade.

Wilder said not to prejudge the situation, however.

"I think we need to wait and see what the agreement looks like," he said, in talking about the beef negotiations.

"And let's get the agreement done, in terms of the beef agreement, and let's present that to the American people and to the American Congress, and let's see what happens from there."

On President Lee, the director characterized him as a leader with a similar background and much in common with Bush.

"Like President Bush, he served in local government before becoming a national figure," said Wilder.

"They share many values in common, including a deep Christian faith, a deep concern for human rights, and an abiding belief in democracy, liberty and free markets."

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Yonhap)