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By Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON, June 18 (Reuters) - North Korea will soon provide an overdue declaration of its nuclear programs, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday as she defended U.S. policy against conservative criticism.

North Korea had promised to produce the declaration by the end of last year under a broader multilateral agreement in which it committed to abandoning all of its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives.

Some conservatives, including former State Department official John Bolton, believe the Bush administration has softened its demand that Pyongyang provide a "complete and correct" accounting. Others also oppose the incentives offered to North Korea.

Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, Rice argued that the Bush administration had not given up much to North Korea, and would insist on verifying Pyongyang's declaration and the eventual elimination of its nuclear arms.

"North Korea will soon give its declaration of nuclear programs to China," Rice said in the speech.

China hosts the six-party talks, which include the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the United States and produced the September 2005 deal under which North Korea agreed to abandon "all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs."

Once North Korea has made the declaration, U.S. President George W. Bush would tell Congress he planned to remove North Korea from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list and to cease to sanction it under the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act, Rice said.

"In the next 45 days after that, before those actions go into effect, we would continue to assess the level of North Korean cooperation in helping to verify the accuracy and completeness of its declaration," she said. "And if that cooperation is insufficient, we will respond accordingly."

Rice argued that the six-party framework was the best way to deal with Pyongyang, which detonated a nuclear device in October 2006, because countries like China and South Korea have some leverage over the North.

"We must keep the broader goal in mind: the elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons and programs -- all of them," Rice said. "North Korea has said that it is committed to this goal. We'll see. No final agreement can be concluded unless we verify the elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons and its programs."

"It may very well be the case that North Korea does not want to give up its nuclear weapons and its programs. That is a very real possibility, but we and our partners should test it and the best way to do so is through the six-party framework," she added. (Editing by Vicki Allen)

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