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WASHINGTON: The US government will announce on Saturday it is removing North Korea from a terrorism blacklist following an agreement with Pyongyang on steps to verify its nuclear disarmament, a US official told AFP.
"We've agreed to a series of verification measures (on North Korea's nuclear program) and flowing from that we can now remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terror," the administration official told AFP on the condition of anonymity.
The agreement comes after "a last round" of telephone consultations on Friday between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her partners in the six-party negotiations, another official said.
The official did not specify to whom Rice spoke, but her partners in the negotiations are North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.
He said the consultations were in addition to the telephone conversations Rice had with her Japanese, Chinese and South Korean counterpart earlier on Friday.
The State Department was to brief reporters further at 11am (1500 GMT).
Spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday that the United States was working to bridge gaps with its partners over a plan to verify North Korea's nuclear disarmament before striking Pyongyang from the terror blacklist.
"This has been about getting the details right on a verification regime that we hope will move this process forward," said McCormack during a daily press briefing in Washington.
"It's a consensus-driven mechanism," McCormack said, adding Washington must make sure that "everybody understands all the details and that everybody is comfortable with all of the details".
Rice spoke by telephone about North Korea earlier Friday with her counterparts Hirofumi Nakasone of Japan, Yu Myung-Hwan of South Korea and Yang Jiechi of China, McCormack said without elaborating. She was also to speak with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, he added.
According to reports on Friday, both sides had virtually reached an agreement that the North would resume disabling its Yongbyon atomic complex in return for being taken off the list.
Yongbyon was shut down in July 2007 under an aid-for-disarmament deal agreed by the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, China and Japan after the North staged its first nuclear weapons test in October 2006.
Washington insists on an agreement on procedures to verify the disarmament process before it can drop the North from the terror list, which blocks some bilateral and multilateral aid.
But Pyongyang, angered at the delay, has been preparing to restart Yongbyon, which made plutonium for nuclear bombs.
Pyongyang's tough stance comes amid reports that its reclusive leader Kim Jong-Il suffered a stroke from which he is recovering, although it is unclear if the developments are connected.
The North on Friday marked the anniversary of its ruling communist party. Official media made no mention of any appearance by Kim, 66.
- AFP/so
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