WASHINGTON - NORTH Korea will not get outstanding shipments of heavy fuel oil until the communist state agrees to steps to verify its nuclear activities which it rejected earlier this week, the United States said on Friday.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said all five countries negotiating with North Korea - Japan, Russia, China, the United States and South Korea - had agreed that future fuel shipments would not go forward until there was progress on a so-called verification protocol with Pyongyang.

'This is an action-for-action process,' Mr McCormack told reporters. 'Future fuel shipments aren't going to move forward absent a verification regime ... they (the North Koreans) understand that.'

Multilateral talks in Beijing with North Korea failed on Thursday to break an impasse on checking Pyongyang's nuclear declarations, scuppering the Bush administration's hopes for a diplomatic success before it hands over to President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 20.

North Korea has been in negotiations with the United States over its nuclear arms program for more than a decade and the issue took on extra urgency after Pyongyang held its first nuclear test explosion in October 2006.

Experts believe Pyongyang is holding out on a verification protocol until the Obama administration takes over next month.

The US hope is that by threatening to provide heavy fuel aid in the future, this will force energy-starved North Korea to rethink its refusal to agree to the verification measures.

Under an agreement last year up to 1 million tonnes of heavy fuel aid was promised as a reward for progress on denuclearisation. Countries outside the five-nation group also have volunteered to supply North Korea with energy as a reward.

By mid-November, North Korea had received about half of the amount promised by the five and the United States has provided about 200,000 tons of that, the State Department said.

An unspecified amount of fuel was delivered this month by Russia and will finish being offloaded in North Korea next week, State Department spokesman Robert McInturff told Reuters.

But Mr McCormack said Russia had made clear in this week's talks in Beijing that any future shipments would not be made until North Korea agreed to the verification protocol.

The US negotiator with North Korea, Mr Christopher Hill, returned to Washington after the failed Beijing talks and briefed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday, said Mr McCormack, adding that Mr Hill would continue trying to get a deal.

'There's the opportunity for North Korea to sign on to this verification protocol,' he said. 'That still exists. We'll see.

The ball is in their court.' -- REUTERS