North Korea has handed over its key nuclear weapons documents to a visiting U.S. diplomat, local media quoted a senior State Department official as saying Thursday.

U.S. envoy Sung Kim, who received the documents in Pyongyang earlier in the day, is to carry them to South Korea later this week, the unidentified official said.

The documents are detailed technical logs from North Korea's shuttered plutonium reactor. "They are an important element in the verification of a declaration which will include figures for the amount of plutonium they (North Korea) have produced," the official said.

Prior to his latest visit to North Korea, Sung Kim, director of the Korea Office at the State Department, had talks with North Korean officials in Pyongyang on April 22 on how to verify any declaration North Korea may make about its nuclear programs.

Under an agreement reached at the six-party talks in Beijing in February last year, North Korea agreed to abandon all nuclear weapons and programs and declare all its nuclear programs and facilities by the end of 2007, in exchange for diplomatic and economic incentives.

However, North Korea missed the deadline despite reported progress in its nuclear disablement and declaration.

The United States has urged the country to fully declare its nuclear programs and activities.

(Xinhua News Agency May 9, 2008)