Diplomat Christopher Hill echoed President George W. Bush's concerns about North Korean moves to reactivate the plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon but he dismissed any suggestion that the negotiations were unraveling.

"They've been staking out some very tough negotiating positions ... so yes the negotiating process does continue," Hill told reporters in New York. "Clearly we're seeing a tough line from them in the last month."

He said it was "hard to tell" whether reports over the last month of Kim Jong-Il's poor health -- denied by Pyongyang -- were related to the "rather rough and tumble moment" in the negotiations.

Kim, 66, has not been seen in public since August 14 and he missed a major military parade earlier this month. South Korean intelligence leaks say he suffered a stroke.

The hardline communist state, which tested an atomic weapon in October 2006, began disabling its aging reactor and other plants at Yongbyon last November under the pact with South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

But it announced last month it had halted work in protest at Washington's refusal to drop it from the US blacklist of countries supporting terrorism, as promised under the deal.

Washington says the North must first accept strict outside verification of the nuclear inventory that Pyongyang handed over in June.

Hill said North Korea must agree to verification steps but acknowledged the North Koreans may find it difficult to accept such an intrusive process.

"It's a tough process, it's not about what you write on a piece of paper, it's about what you do on the ground, it's about going into nuclear facilities in a way that we haven't done before," he said.

The reclusive Stalinist regime confirmed Friday that it was working to restart the plutonium-producing reactor. And the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Monday that North Korea had asked it to remove seals and surveillance equipment from the complex.

Hill declined to comment on the IAEA report but doubted North Korea could quickly get the site going again, saying it could take months to reactivate the reprocessing plant and more than a year for the whole reactor complex.

"I don't think there is any immediate potential for restarting the thing," he said.

Hill said Rice "had a wide-ranging good discussion" with Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and that she will be meet other participants here from the six-party process.

He said the players in the six-party process had to consult each other about the "best way forward," adding talks would take place in New York this week and more talks would take place next week.

Rice was also due to discuss the North Korean issue with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi over dinner later Monday, US officials said.

Bush expressed concern to his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao on Sunday over North Korea's plans, said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman.

"The two presidents agreed that they would work hard to convince the North to continue down the path established in the six-party talks toward denuclearization," said Johndroe.

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