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Following North Korea’s submission of a long-delayed accounting of its nuclear activities, the Bush administration announced on June 26 that it had begun a process to take Pyongyang off the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Under U.S. law the process takes 45 days, which ends on Aug. 11. There were hopes the delisting would take place on Monday, leading to the final stage of dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.
However, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told her Japanese counterpart on Monday that Washington would not delist Pyongyang immediately as it had failed to agree to a comprehensive verification protocol for its nuclear weapons programs, according to Japan's Foreign Ministry.
Rice told Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura by telephone that no date had been set to take North Korea off the blacklist, it said.
The delay would be welcome in Japan, which has been concerned that the lifting of U.S. sanctions could weaken Pyongyang's motivation for resolving the dispute over Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents decades ago.
Tokyo has joined six-nation talks on the North’s nuclear issues, but refused to fund any deal until progress is made in solving a row over abduction cases of Japanese nationals. Tokyo has also called for the United States to refrain from removing North Korea from the terrorism blacklist until the abduction issue is resolved.
Japanese and North Korean officials met Monday in the northeast Chinese city of Shenyang for two days of talks on the abductions. The outcome could help ease sanctions on Pyongyang.
But diplomatic sources in Seoul said the United States would not remove North Korea from the terrorism blacklist before it agrees to Washington's draft concerning how to formulate and operate the verification of Pyongyang’s nuclear activities. The four-page draft was presented after the North turned over its 60-page declaration of nuclear facilities in late June.
South Korea said it was still optimistic about the North's delisting, noting that the 45-day process represents just the minimum timeframe and therefore Aug. 11 was not a deadline for presenting a verification plan for its nuclear programs.
"The timeframe means that the United States can take action on removing North Korea from the state sponsors of terrorism list at any time from today," the Foreign Ministry spokesman told a press briefing.
"We hope North Korea will agree to a verification protocol and be removed from the list as early as possible," he said. The spokesman said the ministry had not been informed of any U.S. move concerning delisting.
Analysts here said the United States is unlikely to take the North off the blacklist in the near future because the Bush administration has vowed to have a strong verification protocol in place first.
During his visit to Seoul last week, President George W. Bush said Pyongyang has much to do before being removed from the blacklist. "I will be patient and I will be consistent. I have faith we will be able to move to the verification process, then to the next step," Bush told a joint press conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
In particular, Bush and Lee urged the North to improve its human rights conditions in order to end its diplomatic isolation, indicating the United States would place an improvement in the North's human rights record as a condition to the removal from the terrorism blacklist and normalization of diplomatic ties between Pyongyang and Washington.
It was the first time for leaders of the United States and South Korea to press North Korea over its human rights violations in a documented agreement.
Bush also made clear that a verification mechanism should cover not only Pyongyang's plutonium program but also its uranium enrichment program and proliferation activities.
"I'm concerned about its uranium enrichment activities as well as its nuclear testing and proliferation, its ballistic missile programs," Bush told the Seoul conference. "The best way to approach and answer those concerns is for there to be strong verification measures," he said.
Kim Tae-woo, a nuclear strategy analyst at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis in Seoul, forecasts the United States will step up its pressure over Pyongyang’s uranium enrichment program and proliferation activities.
"The Bush administration is expected to delay the removal of the North from the list of terrorism-sponsoring states and step up pressure over the uranium enrichment program until Pyongyang agrees to a verification protocol," he said.
Cheon Seong-whun, a researcher at the government-run Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said North Korea would not accept the U.S. demand, citing an earlier agreement that does not specify the uranium issue.
