By SPA,
Washington : U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke Friday to her counterparts in the North Korean nuclear negotiations but “no decision has been taken yet” to remove Pyongyang from a U.S. terrorism blacklist, the State Department said.
Recent reports from several countries said the United States is close to removing North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in the hope of saving an unraveling nuclear disarmament agreement.
But asked whether the United States would remove North Korea from the list, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that “no decision has been taken yet.”
“We are where we were yesterday and the week before and the month before on that issue,” McCormack said, noting that Pyongyang must provide a proper plan to verify its disarmament before Washington removes North Korea from the list.
“On this question of the terrorism list, we are fully prepared to meet our obligations as North Korea meets its obligations. Again, the enabling condition here is agreement on a verification protocol,” the spokesman said.
McCormack said the issue involved high-level talks within the United States and between the United States and its partners in the six-country talks comprising the two Koreas, China, Japan, and Russia.
“Rice just this morning had phone calls with the Japanese foreign minister, the Chinese foreign minister, the South Korean foreign minister,” McCormack said, adding she also would talk soon to her Russian counterpart.