When asked whether the deal showed that "bad behavior will be rewarded," Rice told reporters the deal should be "seen as a message to Iran that the international community is able to bring together its resources."

Iran is defying a UN resolution calling on it to halt uranium enrichment, which makes fuel Tehran says is for civilian nuclear reactors but which can also be used as bomb material when highly refined.

"It's a good story of international cooperation and of bringing together the right states to bring together the right set of incentives and disincentives," Rice said of the North Korean deal, noting that negotiators had "a lot of tools at their disposal, including a security council resolution."

North Korea agreed Tuesday to shut down key nuclear facilities within two months in exchange for badly needed fuel, part of a broad agreement aimed at ending the regime's controversial nuclear program.

In return, the United States would hold direct talks on diplomatic relations with North Korea -- a member of US President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" -- and begin looking at removing it from its list of terrorist nations.

The deal capped marathon six-nation talks in Beijing aimed at convincing the secretive Stalinist state, which tested an atomic bomb for the first time in October, to abandon its nuclear weapons.

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