By Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) - The next few weeks will be critical in determining whether North Korea will provide a complete and correct declaration of its nuclear programs, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said on Tuesday.

Speaking to a group of reporters, analysts and former officials, Hill sought both to keep up diplomatic pressure on North Korea to produce the declaration as well as to emphasize the benefits it would get for eventually giving up all nuclear weapons and programs under a 2005 multilateral agreement.

Hill said North Korean officials have several times told U.S. officials they would like to carry out the deal during the Bush administration, which ends on Jan. 20, 2009, but "the question is whether they are prepared to follow through."

The accord under which North Korea agreed to abandon all its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic benefits has been bogged down by Pyongyang's failure to produce a declaration of those programs by the end of last year.

The so-called six-party agreement was hammered out among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

A sticking point in the declaration had been Pyongyang's reluctance to discuss any transfer of nuclear technology to other nations, notably Syria, as well as its suspected pursuit of uranium enrichment.

That could provide a second path to obtaining fissile material in addition to North Korea's plutonium-based program.

"I think the next couple of weeks (are going to be) critical in this process," Hill said of efforts to persuade North Korea to produce the declaration.

If North Korea did so, Hill said the thinking in the Bush administration was that it might explore resuming an effort to recover the remains of U.S. soldiers missing since the 1950-53 Korean War -- although he said no decisions had been made.

He also emphasized -- as he often has in recent months -- the benefits that would flow to North Korea if it completely gives up its nuclear programs and any nuclear weapons.

These include the prospect of normal relations with the United States, an effort to replace the armistice that ended the Korean War with a formal peace treaty and access to funding from international financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

He said Washington would also be willing -- once North Korea rejoined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty-- to explore the possibility of its pursuing civil nuclear power.

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