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The United States said Wednesday that it could move to take North Korea off its list of state sponsors of terrorism "quite soon" after the North makes a full accounting of its nuclear programs.
"We'll have to wait and see. It could be quite soon if that were to happen," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, as Washington hoped the Stalinist nation would provide its long overdue "declaration" as early as Thursday.
"We just don't know if they're actually going to do it," said Perino, who had told reporters Monday that North Korea was expected to submit the accounting by what she described as a self-imposed deadline of Thursday.
"We are hoping that we would get a correct and verifiable declaration from the North Koreans," she said. "We'll have to see, we don't have anything definitive."
"The North Koreans, as far as I know, have not said definitively when -- if or when -- they will be issuing this declaration but as I said the other day, they had sort of floated the date of June 26th out there. I have no reason to believe that they will or will not meet it," said Perino.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signalled in a mid-June speech that US President George W. Bush could move to take North Korea off the US list of state sponsors of terrorism immediately upon receipt of the declaration.
Under US law, Bush would notify the US Congress he planned to take that step, triggering a 45-day review period -- during which, Rice said, the United States would review the declaration to determine its accuracy.
The North was put on the US terror list in 1988 after its agents were found to have bombed a South Korean airliner the previous year, killing all 115 people on board.
Pyongyang has been involved in the abduction of foreign citizens, mainly Japanese citizens, in the past.
The terror designation prevents the impoverished state from receiving US economic aid and blocks loans from the World Bank and other multilateral organizations.
PHOTO CAPTION:
North Korea
AFP
