"North Korea must promptly eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a visible and verifiable manner," said the statement read to reporters by South Korean official Chang Sun-Sup at the New York headquarters of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO.

"Heavy fuel oil deliveries will be suspended beginning with the December shipment," the statement said. "Future shipments will depend on North Korea's concrete and credible actions to dismantle completely its highly enriched uranium program. In this light, other KEDO activities with North Korea will be reviewed."

The group, which consists of the United States, the European Union, South Korea and Japan, decided to allow a 42,500-tonne current monthly shipment of fuel oil, which left Singapore on Nov. 6, to dock in North Korea as scheduled early next week.

Isolationist North Korea, a country in severe economic decline whose 22 million people face a bitter winter, admitted to U.S. officials in October it was enriching uranium to support a weapons program.

KEDO's statement condemned North Korea for violating the 1994 deal and other international nuclear nonproliferation treaties.

TOUGHER STANCE

U.S. President George W. Bush has taken a tougher stance toward North Korea than his predecessor, Bill Clinton, whose administration negotiated the deal. Last January, Bush named North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran.

The 1994 agreement called for North Korea to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid in the form of 500,000 tonnes of fuel oil a year. The deal also required KEDO to build two light-water nuclear power reactors in North Korea that cannot easily be converted to produce weapons.

North Korea's top diplomat in Hong Kong said on Wednesday that Pyongyang viewed any move to halt the oil shipments as a hostile act.

At Thursday's meeting, the allies showed a united front after days of failing to reach a consensus in talks in Asia.