United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that she has no plans to meet Iran's foreign minister at a conference of Iraq's neighbours next week.

Rice spoke to reporters in Washington.

"Iran must end malign actions that interfere in Iraq's affairs, undermine Iraq's government and harm or murder innocent Iraqi's."

Rice said she would repeat that message at the neighbours' meeting in Kuwait. But the Secretary of State added she wouldn't press the point directly with her Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, who is also expected to attend Tuesday's conference.

Washington insists that Iran has maintained close links to Iraq's Shia militias. And US officials have stepped up their accusations about Iranian involvement in the Iraqi insurgency.

On North Korea, Rice said progress had been made in talks with North Korea over declaring its nuclear activities, adding that she still remains cautious and sceptical over the issue.

Washington has said that a new mechanism was being set up to scrutinize any declaration provided by North Korea on its nuclear weapons programme.

Rice said the six-party framework will need to deal with the issue of proliferation in light of recent developments in North Korea on the issue. But she didn't elaborate further on what those issues are.