U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Japan that Washington would not remove North Korea from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism on the initial deadline of Monday, Japan's foreign minister and the State Department said.
The White House had made clear it did not expect a deal with Pyongyang by Monday for presenting a verification plan for its nuclear programs, but it had said talks would continue.
Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told reporters Rice told him in a telephone call of the delay in taking North Korea off the list of states viewed by Washington as sponsors of terrorism. The list includes Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba.
In Washington, the State Department confirmed the phone call on Sunday night U.S. time between the two ministers and said Rice made clear there were no plans to take North Korea off the list on Monday.
"She confirmed that we would not take any action and that the 45-day notification period is a minimum and not a deadline," said a State Department official, who spoke on condition she not be named.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood reiterated the U.S. position that North Korea could only come off the list when it produced a robust verification plan.
"We are waiting. We want to see this verification regime," Wood told reporters on Monday.
Washington has promised North Korea it could be removed from a U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring states as early as August 11 if a robust verification plan was in place, but U.S. officials have asserted this was not a fixed date.
"It is a minimum 45-day period and as of yet we don't have that verification regime," said Wood.
"Our policy is basically action for action," he added.
The delay was likely to be welcome in Japan, where many are concerned that an easing of U.S. sanctions against Pyongyang would lessen Tokyo's chances of settling a feud over its citizens abducted by North Korean agents decades ago.
Removal from the terrorism blacklist would see an end to U.S. sanctions that have mostly cut off North Korea from international banking and would also clear the way for multilateral aid packages.
In late June, North Korea presented a long-delayed accounting of its nuclear weapons program, kicking off the 45-day process to remove Pyongyang from the terrorism blacklist.
The news sparked outrage from relatives of those Japanese snatched away in the 1970s and 1980s and from some politicians, who fear a lessening of U.S. pressure on Pyongyang will lessen chances of resolving the dispute over the abductees.
On Monday, Japanese and North Korean officials began two days of talks in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang on the abductions, but media reported a lack of visible progress.
Japan said in early June that it would lift some of its own sanctions against North Korea, imposed in 2006 after Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test and test-launched ballistic missiles, because Pyongyang had agreed to reopen a probe into the fate of the abductees.
But Tokyo later said lifting the sanctions hinged on an agreement on how the reinvestigation would be conducted. The abductions are an emotive issue in Japan and a major obstacle to establishing diplomatic ties between Tokyo and Pyongyang.
"We will carry out (the easing of some sanctions) while seeing how they act," Japanese foreign ministry official Akitaka Saiki was quoted as saying by Kyodo news agency after talks with his North Korean counterpart.
Tokyo also insists it will not provide energy as part of a multilateral deal aimed at ending the secretive communist state's nuclear programs unless the abduction issue is settled.
North Korea admitted in 2002 that its agents had abducted 13 Japanese. Five were repatriated that year, but Japan wants more information about eight who the North insists are dead and another four whom Japan says were also kidnapped.
(Reporting by Linda Sieg in Tokyo; Additional reporting by Kim Junghyun in Seoul and Sue Pleming in Washington; Editing by Anthony Boadle)