US to Keep North Korea on Terrorism List
Today was earliest US could have removed Pyongyang from list in exchange for its disclosure of nuclear programs
The US will not immediately remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said today.
Rice's comments came in a telephone conversation with the Japanese foreign minister, Masahiko Komura, a Japanese foreign ministry official said.
Today was the earliest that the US could have removed North Korea from the list in exchange for the communist nation's disclosure of its nuclear programs in June.
Pyongyang's long-delayed accounting of its weapons program kicked off the process of removing it from the terrorism blacklist, but US officials had said a move today was unlikely.
In his conversation with Rice, Komura pointed out that North Korea had yet to specify how Pyongyang's dismantling of its nuclear weapons program would be verified, the ministry official said.
"I didn't think it [the delisting] would happen because North Korea has yet to agree on concrete verification," he said later.
Removal from the terrorism blacklist would see an end to US sanctions that have seen Pyongyang mostly cut off from international banking and also clear the way for multilateral aid packages.
The delay was likely to be welcomed in Japan, where there are grave concerns that an easing of US sanctions would lessen Tokyo's chances of settling a feud over citizens abducted by North Korean agents decades ago.
Japanese and North Korean officials today began two days of talks in the north eastern Chinese city of Shenyang on the abductions.
They remain an emotive issue in Japan and a major obstacle to the establishment of diplomatic ties between Tokyo and Pyongyang.
Rice's comments came in a telephone conversation with the Japanese foreign minister, Masahiko Komura, a Japanese foreign ministry official said.
Today was the earliest that the US could have removed North Korea from the list in exchange for the communist nation's disclosure of its nuclear programs in June.
Pyongyang's long-delayed accounting of its weapons program kicked off the process of removing it from the terrorism blacklist, but US officials had said a move today was unlikely.
In his conversation with Rice, Komura pointed out that North Korea had yet to specify how Pyongyang's dismantling of its nuclear weapons program would be verified, the ministry official said.
"I didn't think it [the delisting] would happen because North Korea has yet to agree on concrete verification," he said later.
Removal from the terrorism blacklist would see an end to US sanctions that have seen Pyongyang mostly cut off from international banking and also clear the way for multilateral aid packages.
The delay was likely to be welcomed in Japan, where there are grave concerns that an easing of US sanctions would lessen Tokyo's chances of settling a feud over citizens abducted by North Korean agents decades ago.
Japanese and North Korean officials today began two days of talks in the north eastern Chinese city of Shenyang on the abductions.
They remain an emotive issue in Japan and a major obstacle to the establishment of diplomatic ties between Tokyo and Pyongyang.
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