Hours after North Korea's unprecedented declaration of its nuclear programs, Washington called for a full verification regime to address "discrepancies" in the dossier, which had no details of the hardline communist state's nuclear weapons nor its suspected uranium enrichment program and proliferation record.

The 60-page declaration was handed over to China Thursday as part of a six-nation deal to end North Korea's nuclear weapons drive.

"A comprehensive verification regime would include, among other things, short notice access to declared or suspect sites related to the North Korean nuclear program (and) access to nuclear materials," the State Department said in a statement.

It should also include "environmental and bulk sampling of materials and equipment, interviews with personnel in North Korea, as well as access to additional documentation and records for all nuclear-related facilities and operations," the statement said.

Any discrepancies in the 60-page declaration must be addressed by North Korea until it is deemed to be "complete and correct," the State Department asserted.

Details of the declaration were not immediately available but reports have long indicated North Korea would announced a 37-kilogram (81-pound) plutonium stockpile -- less than the 40 to 50 kilos that US intelligence officials believe it has.

The US-based Institute for Science and International Security estimated last year that the country had separated enough plutonium for up to 12 nuclear weapons.

The State Department also said that concerns on uranium enrichment and proliferation could be addressed through a monitoring mechanism to be established under a "denuclearization working group" of the six-nation forum.

A senior US official told reporters on condition of anonymity that the envoys from the six countries involved in the talks -- the United States, China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia -- could meet in Beijing on Monday to discuss arrangements for verification.

A verification regime is to be in place within 45 days, US officials said.

Washington expects North Korea to provide access to its key Yongbyon plutonium reactor and radioactive waste to help complement data gleaned from nearly 19,000 documents received from Pyongyang last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday.

"In order to verify the plutonium number that the North Koreans have given, we have been given documents, but we're also expecting access to the reactor core and to the waste pool," Rice told reporters in the Japanese city of Kyoto, where she would attend Group of Eight (G8) talks.

On Friday, North Korea plans to blow up Yongbyon's cooling tower in front of a worldwide TV audience, to symbolize its apparent commitment to denuclearization.

US lawmakers pushed President George W. Bush's administration to determine the full extent of North Korea's past efforts to enrich uranium and nuclear cooperation with Syria and any other countries.

"Without clarity on these issues we cannot proceed with confidence to the next phase of the negotiations -- the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear facilities and the removal of any fissile material from the country," said Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, head of the chamber's foreign relations panel.

Bush's national security advisor Stephen Hadley reassured that Washington wanted "to get to the bottom of that" to make sure "there is no continuing activity going on between North Korea and Syria, or activity with respect to other locations as well."

Bush eased trade sanctions and informed the US Congress Thursday of his intention to remove North Korea from a US terrorism blacklist after it handed over the nuclear dossier.

"You can be sure Congress will also closely monitor North Korea's actions. For now, the ball is squarely in Pyongyang's court," said Howard Berman, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee.

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