Vienna - Members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a resolution Saturday stressing that the nuclear organization should play a key role in North Korea.

The resolution adopted at the IAEA general conference in Vienna said the agency should have an "essential verification role" in North Korea, a notion opposed by Pyongyang, according to Western diplomats.

Diplomats said the reclusive nation would prefer inspections by the United States or other nuclear weapons countries involved in the political 6-party talks on North Korea, rather than the involvement of an international technical organization.

Chief US negotiator Christopher Hill on Friday left Pyongyang after talks over the contentious question of how inspectors can verify the North Korean nuclear programme.

Washington said it would not remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism until Pyongyang agreed to verification procedures, allowing checks of claims made by Pyongyang about its nuclear programme.

North Korea accused the US of failing to keep its end of the bargain and last week removed IAEA seals and cameras at its nuclear facilities in order to restart the reprocessing of plutonium.

Sources close to the nuclear agency said Friday that to their knowledge, the announced plutonium work had not yet begun.

The IAEA resolution noted "with concern the recent halt in disablement work" at North Korea's nuclear complex in Yongbyon, as well as Pyongyang's recent announcement on reprocessing.

At the general conference, Israel alleged in a statement that North Korea had "long become a source of dangerous proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles in the Middle East region." (dpa)