U.S. removes N. Korea from terrorist list: State Dept.

(ATTN: UPDATES with more details, background throughout)
By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 (Yonhap) -- The United States Saturday removed North Korea
from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism in a major breakthrough in
stalled six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear ambitions.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice "has rescinded the designation of North Korea as a state terror sponsor."
The decison for the delisting was made as Pyongyang had agreed to verification of
its uranium-based nuclear program and nuclear proliferation as well as the
plutonium-producing facilities, the spokesman said at a special news conference
at the State Department.
"Every single element of verification that we sought going in is part of the
package," McCormack said.
The announcement comes after a flurry of diplomacy in recent days in which Rice
talked through telephone to her counterparts from South Korea, Japan, China and
Russia, the partners of the six-party nuclear talks.
Christophper Hill, chief U.S. nuclear envoy, visited Pyongyang last week, and
reports said that he made a face-saving proposal for the North during his
three-day visit to Pyongyang last week that Washington will first verify the
North's plutonium-producing facilities and move later to the more sensitive
issues of uranium-based nuclear program and nuclear proliferation.
North Korea began in recent weeks restarting its nuclear facilities that were
disabled under an aid-for-denuclearization deal, denouncing the U.S. for failing
to lift it from a U.S. terrorism blacklist.
North Korea was put on the U.S. State Department's list of state sponsors of
terrorism soon after several North Korean agents bombed a South Korean flight
over Myanmar to kill all 115 passengers on board in November 1987, just weeks
before South Korea's presidential election.
Washington, for its part, had said it would not delist the North unless it agrees
to a complete verification regime under which international monitors are allowed
unfettered access to suspected North Korean nuclear facilities.
The Bush administration was supposed to delist on Aug. 11, 45 days after Bush
notified Congress in late June of its intention to delist, but has not done that
until Saturday citing Pyongyang's failure to agree to a complete verification
protocol.
The notification was made soon after North Korea presented its nuclear list and
blasted its nuclear cooling tower in a major breakthrough in the on-and-off
multilateral nuclear talks that began in 2003.
Pyongyang has been adamant that it will not agree to Washington's demand for
unlimited access to its nuclear facilities, which it said would be a violation of
its sovereignty.
Without elaborating on the sequencing of the verification process, McCormack said
North Korea had allowed nuclear experts from the U.S. and other parties to the
nuclear talks to
verify alleged nuclear proliferation and suspected uranium-based nuclear program.
The spokesman also urged North Korea to "address Japan's concerns without further
delay."
Japan has been opposing the delisting as it said the North has not yet provided
enough explanation on scores of Japanese citizens the North kidnapped decades ago
to train North Korean agents in the Japanese language and culture.
U.S. President George W. Bush telephoned Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso
Saturday morning, White House deputy spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a
statement.
"President Bush told Prime Minister Aso that the U.S. will never forget the
abduction of Japanese citizens by the North Koreans," Johndroe said. "We will
continue to strongly support Japan's position on the abduction issue and will
urge North Korea to take immediate steps to implement the commitments it made
this summer as part the agreement reached with Japan."
North Korea agreed in the meeting with Japan held months earlier that it will
address Japan's claims that North Korea still has at least several more Japanese
abductees aside from several the North had sent back to Japan years ago. No
concerte measures, however, have not been made by the North on the issue since
then.