The Yonhap news agency quoted Song Min-soon as telling businessmen: "Originally, we had set the end of the year as an initial deadline, but we will need to be a little more flexible."
Christopher Hill, the U.S. envoy to the six-nation talks on North Korea, said Wednesday the decommissioning of nuclear facilities in the reclusive state was proceeding to schedule.
On concluding his three-day visit to Pyongyang, Hill, the assistant secretary of state for Asia-Pacific affairs, said he had inspected nuclear facilities in Yongbyon and met with the North Korean envoy to the six-party talks, Kim Kye-Gwan.
"I would say the disablement activities are going well on schedule... But we have to keep working because we have more to do to meet our deadlines," Hill told journalists in Pyongyang.
The six-nation talks involve North and South Korea, Russia, the U.S., Japan, and China. North Korea has agreed to disable its main nuclear facilities under a deal signed in October.
In return for its cooperation, North Korea is to receive aid equivalent to one million tons of fuel oil, and the U.S. has promised to remove the country from its blacklist of countries suspected of aiding terrorism.