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US removes North Korea from terrorism blacklist

North Korea said yesterday it would resume its work to disable plutonium-producing nuclear plants and readmit UN inspectors after the US removed it from a terrorism blacklist.

South Korea said Washington’s move had put the nuclear disarmament process back on track, after a six-party deal appeared close to collapse, but a Japanese minister strongly criticized the US decision.

“As the US fulfilled its commitment to make political compensation and a fair verification procedure ... the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] decided to resume the disablement of nuclear facilities in Yongbyon and allow the inspectors of the US and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] to perform their duties,” a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The spokesman, quoted by the official Korean Central News Agency, welcomed the US move announced on Saturday and said Pyongyang would cooperate in verification.

But the spokesman cautioned that the US must ensure the delisting “actually takes effect.”

Signatories to the six-party deal must also complete delivery of energy aid worth hundreds of millions of dollars that was promised in return for the disabling.

The US State Department said the North had agreed to verification of all of its nuclear activities, including an alleged covert highly enriched uranium program and suspected proliferation.

“Every element of verification that we sought is included in this package,” US State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said on Saturday.

The deal allows for outside experts to visit both declared and undeclared sites in North Korea, take samples and equipment for analysis, view documents and interview staff, US officials said.

However, visits to sites not included in the North’s nuclear declaration delivered in June will require “mutual consent.”

The June declaration dealt only with the admitted plutonium operation based at Yongbyon.

The North’s spokesman said the deal relates to “the verification of objects of the disablement,” a reference to Yongbyon.

Seoul’s top nuclear envoy Kim Sook said he expected six-party talks to resume “as early as possible.”

“The government appreciates that the measure will contribute to putting six-party talks back on track, a move that will eventually lead to North Korea’s nuclear abandonment,” Kim told reporters.

Japan had urged Washington not to delist North Korea, pressing first for more information on the fate of Japanese kidnapped by the North in the 1970s and 1980s.

“I believe abductions amount to terrorist acts,” Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa told reporters in Washington.

But Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said the US step would not affect talks on resolving the abductions dispute.

Kim Tae-woo, of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul, called it “an agreement for an agreement’s sake.”

He said he suspected the US and North Korea both had “political reasons” to reach this kind of deal to pacify critics at home.
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