Hill requested the meeting on Thursday before launching a regional tour which will focus on efforts to kick-start disarmament talks, a transition team official said.

He is to arrive in Seoul Tuesday, the foreign ministry said.

President-elect Lee Myung-Bak has signalled a tougher line since being elected last month, urging the North to fully scrap its nuclear weapons programmes in return for major economic aid from Seoul.

North Korea should have disabled its key nuclear facilities by December 31 and given a full declaration of its nuclear programmes under a deal a year ago with China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US.

But it missed the deadline. A foreign ministry statement last week said that Pyongyang was near to completing the disabling and gave a full account to Washington in November -- a claim Washington denied.

The North said it was slowing compliance with the deal, accusing the other parties of failing to deliver the promised aid and said Washington had yet to remove Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

North Korea has received about 150,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 5,000 tonnes of steel as an alternative form of aid, according to Seoul.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the US was still waiting for North Korea's "complete, full and accurate" account.

Washington says that Pyongyang imported material which could be used in a secret uranium enrichment programme. The North has never publicly admitted any such operation.

Under a proposed final phase of the six-nation deal, the North is to dismantle its plants and hand over all nuclear materials in return for diplomatic relations with the US and Japan and a formal peace treaty on the Korean peninsula.