North Korea last year signed a breakthrough six-nation deal to abandon its nuclear weapons in exchange for badly needed aid and security guarantees.

But the North missed a deadline to disable its reactor and declare all existing nuclear programmes by the end of last year amid United States allegations it has a covert uranium enrichment project in addition to its declared plutonium.

China, which chairs the six-party talks and is North Korea's main ally, has proposed to separate the disablement of the Yongbyon reactor, which is seen as on track, and the requirement for the full declaration, the Tokyo Shimbun said.

Under China's proposal, North Korea and the United States would offer separate declarations on what they consider to be the communist state's nuclear programmes, the newspaper said on Friday, quoting unnamed sources in negotiations.

The North has said it submitted a list in November and accuses its partners of not honouring their side of the deal - especially the failure to start removing it from a US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The United States has repeatedly demanded a complete account of Pyongyang's nuclear programmes. It wants to know about alleged uranium enrichment and to clear up suspicions the impoverished state shipped nuclear technology to Syria.

The US State Department voiced guarded optimism after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met this week with Chinese President Hu Jintao, saying the two sides shared unspecified 'ideas' about the North Korean situation.

President George W. Bush's administration has been eager to point to the North Korea deal as a key achievement as it prepares to leave office in January.

The New York Philharmonic orchestra on Tuesday performed in Pyongyang in a sign of reconciliation between the two countries which remain technically at war. -- AFP