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US rebuffs N Korea on terror
list
BBC
Tuesday September 4, 2007
A top US official has rejected North Korea's claim that Washington
has agreed to remove it from a list of countries that support
terrorism.
Nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said that such a move would
depend on progress by Pyongyang towards ending its nuclear programme.
On Monday North Korea said that the US had agreed to the move
at bilateral talks in Geneva at the weekend.
In return, it would disable its nuclear facilities by year-end,
it said.
North Korea wants to be delisted to improve its international
standing.
It was blacklisted in January 1988, following the bombing of
a South Korean airliner. All 115 passengers on board were killed.
(Article continues below)
Nuclear progress
North Korea said on Monday that the two sides had agreed "practical
measures to neutralise the existing nuclear facilities" in
the communist nation by the end of the year.
Washington would compensate North Korea for this by "deleting
our country from the list of terror-supporting nations and fully
lifting sanctions imposed under the law on trading with enemy countries",
it said.
But Mr Hill, in Australia for the forthcoming Asia-Pacific Economic
Co-operation summit, said that this was not the case.
"No, they haven't been taken off the terrorism list,"
he said. "Their getting off that list will depend on further
denuclearisation."
The talks between the US and North Korea are part of a wider
international process aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear programme
for good.
In July, North Korea shut down its main reactor, Yongbyon, in
return for aid.
Negotiators are now hammering out the next part of the deal,
under which North Korea must disclose and dismantle all its nuclear
facilities in return for more aid and political incentives.
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