Rice said she would meet officials from South Korea, China and Japan to boost North Korea's disarmament but appeared to rule out any breakthrough when she said it would not be "useful" for her to talk to North Korean officials.

The countries involved in the issue "have the right set of incentives and disincentives to address not just denuclearization, which obviously is extremely important, but also proliferation," Rice said.

It was not clear if Rice -- speaking to reporters before visiting Seoul on Monday and then Beijing and Tokyo in the following days -- was referring to exports of just conventional weapons or also nuclear-related materiel.

The United States has accused North Korea of being a leading global proliferator of missiles, but the cash-strapped country has refused to stop the exports, a major source of hard currency earnings.

In July 2006, it test-fired seven missiles, including the long-range Taepodong-2, which in theory could reach the US west coast.

Washington also demands North Korea clear up suspicions of possible nuclear technology transfer to Syria. Media reports have said an Israeli air strike in Syria last September may have targeted a joint nuclear project.

North Korea, which staged its first nuclear test in October 2006, is disabling its nuclear plants under an agreement arising from negotiations with South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

A landmark deal reached on February 13, 2007 offers the North a million tonnes of fuel oil, normalized ties with the United States and Japan and a formal peace treaty, if it scraps all nuclear programs and material.

In the current phase, the North agreed to disable its atomic plants and fully declare all nuclear programs by the end of last year. But it missed the deadline amid a dispute with the United States over the declaration.

"We need a complete declaration from the North Koreans about both their proliferation activities, their current plutonium program, which they are in the process of disabling, but also the HEU (Highly Enriched Uranium) program that they need to make clear what has happened there," Rice said.

Washington points to Pyongyang's purchase of thousands of aluminum tubes as evidence of a possible secret enrichment program.

When asked if she would meet with a North Korean delegate during her stop in Beijing, she replied: "I don't see any purpose at this point in meeting with North Koreans."

She said that Christopher Hill, her top nuclear envoy, has had "those contacts and he'll continue to have them."

She added: "I think everybody knows what needs to happen here, and North Korea is quite aware of what it needs to do."

Rice also said the New York Philharmonic would provide some diplomatic benefit when it gives a landmark concert next week in the North Korean capital Pyongyang.

But she added: "I don't think we should get carried away with what listening to Dvorak is going to do in North Korea."

Nonetheless she put the concert in a broader context in which North Korea would increasingly interact and open up to the outside world, which is envisioned as the six-party talks move forward.

"And so, one can always hope that engagement with the outside world, no matter how limited, starts to have an effect," Rice said.

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