The United States has made it clear that it will not put North Korea back on a U.S. terrorism blacklist after the latest round of nuclear talks collapsed in Beijing.

At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that Washington is not going to rethink its removal of North Korea from the list, saying that the recent nuclear talks simply came up short of achieving the goal of reaching an agreement on a nuclear verification protocol.

He said that the removal of the North from the U.S. terrorism list was based on law and on the fact that Pyongyang met necessary criteria.

McCormack also said some of the understandings that the two sides reached on the verification issue were part of an oral understanding that the U.S. took very precise and careful notes on. He said that one of the orally agreed upon verification measures was the removal of nuclear samples, an issue the North said in recent talks would violate its sovereignty.

Meanwhile, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said at a news briefing that while it is too early to say what the next steps are regarding the North’s nuclear issue, Washington is going to have to rethink parts of the action-for-action principle it has been implementing in addressing Pyongyang’s nuclear standoff. Her remarks raised the possibility that the U.S. might suspend energy aid to the North.