He said Washington would not accept anything short of "complete" and "verifiable" dismantling and removal of North Korea's nuclear arms program.

At the last round of six-party talks in June, the United States offered the North three months to shut down and seal its nuclear weapons facilities in return for economic and diplomatic rewards and multilateral security guarantees.

Pyongyang rejected the offer and refused to attend the fourth round of the talks scheduled in September, citing reasons including "hostile" US policy.

However North Korea's second-ranking leader Kim Yong-Nam told China's President Hu Jintao this week that North Korea remained committed to the talks, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

"What we can't do is lean back and wait for the North Koreans to say, 'Well, we don't like that one. Give us another one,' or, 'Put something else on the table,'" Powell said in an interview with the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine.

"They have a long and well-understood history of negotiating. And as long as they think there is always something more coming, they will see if they can hold out for something more," he said, according to a transcript of the interview provided by the State Department Thursday.

Powell stressed that the US plan could only take off if there were firm assurances by North Korea to end its nuclear arms activities and in a transparent manner.

"But it's only going to be in the context of a complete removal, in a verifiable manner, of this capability, and only after steps have been taken in that direction that make it clear that they are serious and that there will be no way to get -- to go backwards," he said.

Powell said he also made it clear to North Korea that it was unlikely to gain more concessions by awaiting the outcome of the November 2 US presidential election.

"Maybe they think there's going to be a change in administration. I told the (North Korean) foreign minister in June I thought that he probably needs to come to the realization that: one, the president has told me to work all the way through the election; and then, we have another four years to work on this problem -- same president.

"He didn't smile, but all of his colleagues did," said Powell, who will start a visit to Japan, China and South Korea on Friday.

The North Asian visit was aimed at discussing the the six-party talks as well as other security and bilateral issues.

While President George W. Bush backs multilateral talks to resolve the Korean peninsula nuclear crisis, his rival for the White House Senator John Kerry is pushing for bilateral talks with Pyongyang in parallel with diplomacy.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said North Korea might have "miscalculated the importance of seeing a change here in Washington" with the presidential election.

"I think if there were change, it's not going to change the makeup of the US Congress; and if there were a Democratic president and a Republican Congress, it won't make it any easier for them as we move forward, particularly with a country, which has, in the past, cheated on her arrangements," Armitage told The Australian newspaper.

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