The communist state signed a deal in February to shut down its nuclear reactor in exchange for badly needed fuel. But it did meet the first deadline in April due to a long-running row with Washington over frozen assets.

"There is no doubt that the patience of all parties is beginning to wear out rather thin at this stage," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on a visit to Tokyo.

"I think it's important that the North Koreans live up to the agreement that was reached on February 13 but nobody would wait forever. And there will be increasing pressure placed on North Korea as time goes on," he said.

Australia, unlike its allies Japan and the United States, maintains diplomatic relations with North Korea.

Japan and Australia agreed to cooperate on North Korea after a meeting in Tokyo between their defence and foreign ministers.

The four ministers in a joint statement "deplored the destabilising actions of North Korea and expressed deep concerns over North Korea's nuclear and missile development programmes."

Japan has tense relations with North Korea and has refused to fund the February deal due to a feud over Pyongyang's past kidnappings of Japanese nationals.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, speaking Wednesday in Germany, said he would call on the Group of Eight summit to take a tough line on North Korea.

Pyongyang says it is still waiting to recover 25 million dollars which had been frozen in a Macau bank since 2005 under US-instigated sanctions.

The United States has since unfrozen the funds but North Korea has had difficulty finding a foreign bank to transfer money seen as tainted.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.