US unlikely to remove North Korea from terrorism list

Beijing, Aug 11 (PTI) The United States Sunday said it
may not immediately remove North Korea from its list of
terror-sponsoring nations as Pyongyang has yet to agree to a
regime for verifying its nuclear declaration.

"At this point, I think it is reasonable to say that
Monday probably will come and go without that happening,"
Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asia on the National
Security Council, told reporters.

Wilder, traveling with U.S. President George W. Bush
through Asia, said the U.S. position is to take North Korea
off the list once a regime is decided on to verify
Pyongyang's recently submitted declaration on nuclear
activities.

"We are in discussions with the North. We continue
trying to work with them on this question -- on a robust
verification regime," he said. "But we aren't at the point
where we are satisfied with what they have put on the table
thus far," Wilder was quoted as saying by Kyodo news agency.

Bush notified US Congress on June 26 of his intention to
remove North Korea from the blacklist, enabling his
administration to call for actual removal on or after August
10.

North Korea submitted a long-delayed declaration of its
nuclear programmes in June, ending a six-month stalemate in
the six-party denuclearisation negotiations stemming from a
row over what should be included in the document.

The six countries -- China, Japan, Russia, North and
South Korea, and the United States -- have since agreed to
set up a regime to check information on the list but have yet
to agree on the specifics such as who will visit which
nuclear sites carrying what kind of equipment. PTI AKJ