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TOKYO, Aug 11 (Reuters) US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Japan that Washington will not remove North Korea from a US list of state sponsors of terrorism today, Japanese media reported, quoting Japan's foreign minister.
The delay was likely to be welcome in Japan, where many are concerned that an easing of US sanctions against Pyongyang would lessen Tokyo's chances of settling a feud over its citizens abducted by North Korean agents decades ago.
Japanese and North Korean officials today began two days of talks in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang on the abductions, an emotive issue in Japan and a major obstacle to establishing diplomatic ties between Tokyo and Pyongyang.
Komura told reporters that Rice had informed him of the delay in the delisting in a telephone conversation, Kyodo news agency reported. Foreign ministry officials could not immediately confirm the remark.
The White House had already made clear that it did not expect a deal with Pyongyang by today's initial deadline for presenting a verification plan for its nuclear programmes, but had said talks would continue.
Washington has promised North Korea it could be removed from a US list of terrorism-sponsoring states as early as August 11 if a robust verification plan was in place, but US officials have asserted this was a ''minimum timeline'' rather than a fixed date.
Removal from the terrorism blacklist would see an end to US sanctions that have mostly cut off North Korea from international banking and would also clear the way for multilateral aid packages.
In late June, North Korea presented a long-delayed accounting of its nuclear weapons programme, kicking off the 45-day process to remove Pyongyang from the terrorism blacklist.
The news sparked outrage from relatives of those Japanese snatched away in the 1970s and 1980s and from some politicians, who fear a lessening of U.S. pressure on Pyongyang will lessen chances of resolving the dispute over the abductees.
Japan said in early June that it would lift some of its own sanctions, imposed on North Korea in 2006 after Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test and test-launched ballistic missiles, because Pyongyang had agreed to reopen a probe into the fate of the abductees. But Tokyo later said lifting the sanctions hinged on an agreement on how the reinvestigation would be conducted.
Tokyo also insists it will not provide energy as part of a multilateral deal aimed at ending the secretive communist state's nuclear programmes unless the abduction issue is settled.
North Korea admitted in 2002 that its agents had abducted 13 Japanese. Five were repatriated that year, but Japan wants more information about eight who the North insists are dead and another four whom Japan says were also kidnapped.
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