A senior US diplomat said yesterday that North Korea remains on a list of states that sponsor terrorism, dismissing Pyongyang's claims that Washington has decided to remove the designation.
"No, they haven't been taken off the terrorism list," US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told Japanese reporters as he arrived in Sydney for a meeting of Pacific Rim nations.
A US State Department press officer separately confirmed the remarks.
Hill's comments were the first US denial since North Korea's foreign ministry, in a statement carried on Monday by the country's official news agency, said that Washington decided to scrap the terror designation and, with it, related economic sanctions.
The statement said the change came during a weekend meeting between Hill and his counterpart in Geneva.
Under a deal reached in February after years of tortuous negotiations, North Korea agreed to relinquish its nuclear programs, including one that has produced bomb material. In return, Washington agreed to open talks on normalizing relations with the North and to explore removing the terrorism designation.
Hill said North Korea needed to go further in dismantling its nuclear programs before the US would take it off the terrorism list.
"Getting off the list will depend on further denuclearization," Hill told reporters later yesterday after a meeting with Japan's nuclear envoy, who was also in Sydney for a meeting of the APEC forum.
Hill declined to specify what North Korea must do, but said the issue has been discussed with North Korean officials.
"They know what these steps are," Hill said.
After a slow start, the parties to the February agreement -- the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia -- have picked up speed in implementing its terms. North Korea shut down its main nuclear reactor in July.
After last weekend's Geneva meeting, Hill told reporters that North Korean envoy Kim Kye-gwan had agreed to disclose the country's nuclear programs and disable them by the end of this year.
Kim separately suggested that the North was willing to declare and dismantle the facilities, but it did not mention the year-end deadline.
North Korea has faced various economic sanctions since the 1950 to 1953 Korean War. Washington put it on the terrorism list for its alleged involvement in the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed 115 people.
The designation effectively blocks North Korea from receiving low-interest loans from the World Bank and other international lending agencies.
The administration of US President George W. Bush believes the North cheated on an earlier nuclear deal, supposedly starting up a separate program to enrich uranium while freezing a plutonium-based program.
Under the February arrangement, Washington has tried to get North Korea to make major concessions on its nuclear programs before the US and other parties make theirs.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not