NKorea to resume disabling nuclear plants
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North Korea will resume the disablement of nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. (AFP: File photo)
North Korea on Sunday welcomed the US decision to drop it from a terrorism blacklist and said it would resume disabling its nuclear plants.
"We welcome the US which has honoured its commitment to delist the DPRK (North Korea) as 'a state sponsor of terrorism'," a foreign ministry spokesman told the official Korean Central News Agency.
"The DPRK decided to resume the disablement of nuclear facilities in Yongbyon and allow the inspectors of the US and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to perform their duties."
The US announced Saturday that it had removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism after reaching an agreement on how to verify its nuclear program.
The North's spokesman said that the agreement relates to "the verification of objects of the disablement of nuclear facilities" - a reference to its declared plutonium-producing operation at Yongbyon.
He also said future work would depend on whether the delisting "actually takes effect" and whether other signatories to a six-nation disarmament accord complete delivery of promised energy aid.
The latest US-North Korean deal allows for outside experts to visit both declared and undeclared sites in North Korea, take and remove samples and equipment for analysis, view documents and interview staff, US officials said.
However, visits to sites not included in the North's nuclear declaration delivered in June will require "mutual consent."
The row over verification and delisting had left the hard-won 2007 accord on disarmament close to collapse, with the North - which tested a nuclear device for the first time in October 2006 - threatening to restart Yongbyon.
The talks group the two Koreas with the United States, Russia, China and Japan.
- AFP
