US denies removing N Korea from terror list
US diplomat Christopher Hill said North Korea was still on the list of states sponsoring terrorism
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Tuesday, 04, Sep 2007 07:59
US assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill has denied taking North Korea off a US list of states sponsoring terrorism after yesterday's agreement on the ending of the communist state's nuclear programme.
Mr Hill, who is representing the American delegation at the talks, told the Kyodo news agency that North Korea's name was still on the list and that further progress on disbanding its nuclear programme was needed for such a move to take place.
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency had reported that the US had decided to make the move at yesterday's talks in Geneva.
"The meeting discussed the goals at the next phase for the implementation of the September 19 joint statement and reached a series of agreements.
"The US decided to take such political and economic measures for compensation as delisting the DPRK [official name for North Korea] as a terrorism sponsor and lifting all sanctions that have been applied according to the Trading with the Enemy Act.
"This has laid a groundwork for making progress at the plenary session of the six-party talks to be held in the future."
Mr Hill said the south-east Asian state, which was put on the list after the bombing of a South Korean plane in the late 1980s, needed to prove "further denuclearisation" for such a move to take place.
He did not expand on what measures would be expected saying: ''I don't want to get into all the details of it. We had some private diplomatic discussions, we had some understanding of how we go forward.''
Yesterday, the US diplomat announced that North Korea has agreed to put an end to its controversial nuclear programme by 2007 and suggested that diplomatic ties could be resumed.
"To the extent that we can move quickly to denuclearisation, we can move quickly to normalisation," the US diplomat said.
The US does not currently recognise North Korea and talks are currently taking place alongside representatives from China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.
Tensions between the two countries threatened to boil over after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test last year. Negotiations continued and resulted in a deal under which the communist state closed down a nuclear reactor in exchange for fuel aid.