North Korea Off US Blacklist of Countries Supporting Terrorism

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After being taken off the US terrorism blacklist on Saturday, North Korea has announced Sunday that it will immediately resume disabling its nuclear facilities.

In a statement, the North Korean foreign ministry expressed satisfaction with America's move.

"We welcomed Washington's moves to follow through on their responsibilities according to the agreement reached," a spokesman for the country's foreign ministry said.

It added: "With the move by the United States we will also fulfill our 'action for action' principle and resume the disabling of the (Yongbyon) nuclear facilities and allow inspectors from the United States and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to resume their responsibilities."

North Korea was removed from the list after agreements were made in six-party talks. Among them: the role of the UN, full access to its nuclear facilities, and procedures in the verification process.

Initially, the USA refused to remove North Korea until the country agreed to set up a mechanism to verify it was revealing all its nuclear secrets.

Now that North Korea is removed from the terrorism list, it is no longer subject to various economic sanctions and limitations on foreign aid. Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria remain on the list.

But not everyone is happy with the latest developments.

Japan, for one, feels that North Korea has not been forthcoming with the kidnapping of Japanese citizens in the 70s and 80s.

Japanese finance minister Shoichi Nakagawa said that Japan wanted North Korea to disclose more information regarding the issue first, because the "abductions amount to terrorist acts".

Analysts are also skeptical about the success of the deal as previous agreements have fallen apart before due to differing interpretations.