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Japan doubts U.S. will de-list DPRK without Tokyo consent - agency - 1

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Japan doubts that the U.S. will de-list North Korea as a sponsor of terrorism without Tokyo's consent, the Kyodo Tsushin agency said Monday, citing a government source who wished to remain anonymous.
(Adds State Department official's reaction in last two paras)

TOKYO, September 3 (RIA Novosti) - Japan doubts that the U.S. will de-list North Korea as a sponsor of terrorism without Tokyo's consent, the Kyodo Tsushin agency said Monday, citing a government source who wished to remain anonymous.

"I don't think they will unilaterally adopt the decision on [North Korea's] removal [from the list] without Japan's consent," Kyodo quoted the source as saying.

On Sunday, after bilateral talks in Geneva September 1-2, U.S. and North Korean representatives announced North Korea was ready to freeze its nuclear program by year-end.

On Monday, the official KCNA news agency quoted the North Korean Foreign Ministry's statement as saying: "In return for this [readiness to freeze the nuclear program], the U.S. decided to take such political and economic measures for compensation as delisting the DPRK as a terrorism sponsor and lifting all sanctions that have been applied according to the Trading with the Enemy Act."

But even before information on Washington's consent to do so appeared, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said the U.S. assured his country that it will not sacrifice Japanese-American ties for the sake of improving relations with Pyongyang.

Machimura said he was sure Washington would not de-list the North without Japanese approval.

Tokyo says the removal of North Korea from the blacklist of terrorism accomplice countries should be linked to the resolution of the issue of Japanese citizens abducted in 1970-1980s by North Korean secret services.

North Korea admitted that its secret services kidnapped 13 Japanese nationals. Five of them were repatriated, while the remaining eight, according to North Korea's assurances, have died.

Pyongyang has said the issue is closed, but Tokyo has said there were more than 13 cases and insists all those abducted be returned to Japan.

North Korea was put on the blacklist of terrorism sponsors after a North Korean security service officer admitted he organized the explosion of a South Korean passenger plane in 1987. The blacklist, envisioning stiff economic sanctions, also comprises in particular Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.

Five working groups operate as part of the six-nation talks on North Korea's denuclearization. International efforts seeking a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula intensified after the North conducted nuclear tests last October.

In February, they produced a breakthrough when Pyongyang agreed to gradually close its nuclear facilities in exchange for economic aid and other concessions.

The U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act against North Korea and some other countries bans arms sales to guilty countries and deprives them of U.S. aid.

CNN reported that a high-ranking representative in the U.S. State Department, who wished to remain anonymous, denied Monday the North Korean Foreign Ministry's statement that said Washington was planning to cancel economic sanctions for N. Korea and remove it from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.

The TV station quoted the representative as saying that ending sanctions and taking North Korea off the list was not inevitable, and is subject to certain conditions being implemented by the Communist state.

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